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MOUNT MUSIC 



By the same Authors 

SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN 
IRISH R.M. 

FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN 

IRISH R.M. 

IN MR. KNOX'S COUNTRY 

ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE 

SOME IRISH YESTERDAYS 

AN IRISH COUSIN 

THE REAL CHARLOTTE 

THE SILVER FOX 

IRISH MEMORIES 



LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO 

LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, 
CALCUTTA AND NiADRAS. 



MOUNT MUSIC 



By 

E. CE. SOMERVILLE 

AND 

MARTIN ROSS 

AUTHORS OF 

" THE REAL CHARLOTTE," " SOME EXPERIENCES 
OF AN IRISH R.M.," "ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE," 

ETC., ETC. 



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LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 

39 PATERNOSTER ROW. LONDON 

FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET, NEW YORK, 
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS 

I919 




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COPYRIGHT, I919, BY 
J-ONGMANS, GREEN AND CO, 



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PREFACE 

This hook was planned some years ago by Martin 
Ross and myself, A few portions of it were 
written^ and it was tke?iput aside for other work. 

Without her help and inspiration^ it would not 
have been begun, and could not have been completed. 
I feel, therefore^ that to join her name with mine 
on the title-page is my diity^ as well as my pleasure. 

E. (E. SOMERVILLE. 



June iTth, 1919. 



428498 



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MOUNT MUSIC 



CHAPTER I 

" Christian, dost thou see them ? " sang an elder brother, 
small enough to be brutal, large enough to hurt, while he 
twisted Christian's arm as though it were indeed the rope 
that it so much resembled. 

" I won't say I saw them, because I didn't ! " replied 
Christian, who had ceased to struggle, but was as far as ever 
from submission ; " but if I had, you might twist my arm till 
it was like an old pig's tail and I wouldn't give in ! " 

Possibly John realised the truth of this defiance. He 
administered a final thump on what he believed to be 
Christian's biceps, and released her. 

" Pretty rotten to spoil the game, and then tell lies," he said, 
with severity. 

*' I don't tell lies," said Christian, flitting like a gnat to 
the open window of the schoolroom. " You sang the wrong 
verse ! It ought to have been ' hear them,' and I do ! " 

Having thus secured the last word. Miss Christian Talbot- 
Lowry, aged nine in years, and ninety in spirit, sprang upon 
the window-sill, leapt lightly into a flower-bed, and betook 
herself to the resort most favoured by her, the kennels of 
her father's hounds. 

What person is there who, having attained to such maturity 
as is required for legible record, shall presume to reconstruct, 
either from memory or from observation, the mind of a child ? 
Certain mental attitudes may be recalled, certain actions 

7 



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8 ....... ... MQUNT MUSIC 



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predicate i m 'certain 'circumstances, but the stream of the 
mind, with its wayward currents, its secret eddies, flows 
underground, and its course can only be guessed at by tokens 
of speech and of action, that are Hke the rushes, and the yellow 
king-cups, and the emerald of the grass, that show where 
hidden waters run. Nothing more presumptuous than the 
gathering of a few of these tokens will here be attempted, 
and of these, only such as may help to explain the time when 
these children, emerging from childhood, began to play 
their parts in the scene destined to be theirs. 

This history opens at a moment for Christian and her 
brethren when, possil ly for the last time in their several 
careers, they asked nothing more of life. This was the 
beginning of the summer holidays ; the sky was unclouded 
by a governess, the sunny air untainted by the whiff of a 
thought of a return to school. Anything might happen 
in seven weeks. The end of the world, for instance, might 
mercifully intervene, and, as this was Ireland, there was 
always a hope of a " rising," in which case it would be the 
boys' pleasing duty to stay at home and fight. 

'* Well, and Judith and I would fight, too," Christian would 
say, thinking darkly of the Indian knife that she had stolen 
from the smoking-room, for use in emergencies. She varied 
in her arrangements as to the emergency. Sometimes the 
foe was to be the Land Leaguers, who were much in the fore- 
ground at this time ; sometimes she decided upon the English 
oppressors of a down-trodden Ireland, to whose slaughter, 
on the whole, her fancy most inclined. But whatever 
the occasion, she was quite determined she was not going 
to be outdone by the boys. 

At nine years old. Christian was a little rag of a girl ; a 
rag, but imbued with the spirit of the rag that is nailed to 
the mast, and flaunts, unconquered, until it is shot away. 
She had a small head, round and brown as a hazel-nut, and 
a thick mop of fine, bright hair, rebellious like herself, of the 
sort that goes with an ardent personality, waved and curled 
over her little poll, and generally ended the day in a tangle 
only less intricate than can be achieved by a skein of silk. 
Of her small oval face, people were accustomed to say it was- 
all eyes, an unoriginal summarising, but one that forced 
itself inevitably upon those who met Christian's eyes, clear 



MOUNT MUSIC 9 

and shining, of the pale brown that the sun knows how to 
waken in a shallow pool in a hill-stream, set in a dark fringe 
of lashes that were like the rushes round the pool. Before 
she could speak, it was told of her eyes that they would quietly 
follow some visitor, i visible to others, but obvious to her. 
Occasion lly, after the mysterious power of speech — that is 
almost as mysterious as the power of reading — had come to 
her, she had scared the nursery by broken conversation 
with viewless confederates, defined by the nursery-maid as 
*' quare turns that'd tnke I er, the Lord save us ! " and by her 
mother, as *' something that she will outgrow, and the less 
said about it the better, darlings. Remember, she is the 

youngest, and you must all be very wise and kind *' 

(a formula that took no heed of punctuation, and was 
practically invariable). 

But as Christian grew older the confederates withdrew, 
either that, or the protecting shell of reserve that guards the 
growth of individuality, interposed, and her dealings with 
things unseen ceased to attract the attention of her elders. 
It was John, her senior by two years, who preserved an 
interest, of an inquisitorial sort, in what he had decided 
to call the Troops of Midian. There was a sacerdotal turn 
about John. He had early decided upon the Church as his 
vocation, and only hesitated between the roles of Primate of 
Ireland and Pope of Rome. He had something of the poet 
and enthusiast about him, and something also of the bully, 
and it was quite possible that he might do creditably in either 
position, but at this stage of his development his ecclesiastical 
proclivities chiefly displayed themselves in a dramatic study, 
founded upon that well-known Lenten hymn that puts a 
succession of searching enquiries, of a personal character, 
to a typical Christian. A missionary lecture on West Africa 
had supplied some useful hints as to the treatment of witches, 
and Christian's nam.e, and the occult powers with which 
she was credited, had indicated her as heroine of the piece. 

On this particular afternoon the game had begun prosper- 
ously, with Christian as the Witch of Endor, and John as a 
blend of the Prophet Samuel and the Head Inquisitor of 
Spain. A smouldering saucer of sulphur, purloined by the 
witch herself from the kennels, medicine-cupboard, gave a 
stimulating reality to the scene, even though it had driven 



10 MOUNT MUSIC 

the fox terriers, who habitually acted as the Witch's cats, 
to abandon their parts, and to hurry, sneezing and coughing 
indignantly, to the kitchen. The twins, Jimmy and Georgy, 
however, obligingly took their parts, and all was going 
according to ritual, when one of the sudden and annoying 
attacks of rebellion to which she was subject, came upon the 
Witch of Endor. The orthodox conclusion involved a 
penitential march through the kitchen regions, the Witch 
swathed in a sheet, and carrying lighted candles, while she 
was ceremonially flagellated by the Prophet with one of his 
father's hunting crops. This crowning moment was 
approaching. Christian had but to reply suitably to the 
intimidating riddles of the hymn, and the final act would open 
in all its solemnity. But, as has been said, the spirit of revolt 
whispered to her, and ingeniously persuaded her that the 
required recantation committed her to a falsehood. 

As she told John, when the formal inquisition had passed 
through acrid dispute to torture, she didn't tell lies. 



CHAPTER II 

In the days when Christian Talbot-Lowry was a little girl, 
that is to say between the eighties and nineties of the nine- 
teenth century, the class known as Landed Gentry was still 
pre-eminent in Ireland. Tenants and tradesmen bowed 
down before them, with love sometimes, sometimes with 
hatred, never with indifference. The newspapers of their 
districts recorded their enterprises in marriage, in birth, 
in death, copiously, and with a servile rapture of detail that, 
though it is not yet entirely withheld from their survivors, 
is now bestowed with an equal unction on those who, in many 
instances, have taken their places, geographically, if not their 
place, socially, in Irish every-day existence. There is little 
doubt but that after the monsters of the Primal Periods 
had been practically extinguished, a stray reptile, here and 
there, escaped the general doom, and, as Mr. Yeats says of 
his lug-worm, may have sung with " its grey and muddy 
mouth " of how " somewhere to North or West or South, 
there dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race " of Plesiosauridse, 
or Pterodactyli. Even- thus may this record be regarded; 
as partial, perhaps, but as founded on the facts of a not wholly 
to be condemned past. 

Christian's father, Richard Talbot-Lowry, was a good- 
looking, long-legged, long-moustached Major, v/ho, conform- 
ing beautifully to type, was a soldier, sportsman, and loyalist, 
as had been his ancestors before him. He had fought in the 
Mutiny as a lad of nineteen, and had been wounded in the 
thigh in a cavalry charge in a subsequent fight on the Afghan 
Frontier. Dick, like Horatius, " halted upon one knee '* 
for the rest of his life, but since the injury gave him no trouble 

II 



12 MOUNT MUSIC 

in the saddle, and did not affect the sit of his trousers, he did 
not resent it, and possibly enjoyed its occasional exposition 
to an enquirer. When his father died, he left the Army, 
and, still true to the family traditions, proceeded to " settle 
down " at Mount Music, and to take into his own hands the 
management of the property. ~'*^ 

Of the Talbot-Lowrys it may be truly said that the lot 
had fallen to them in a fair ground. Their ancestor, the 
Gentleman Adventurer of Queen Elizabeth's time, had had 
the eye for the country that, in a slightly different sense, 
had descended to his present representative. Mount Music 
House stood about midway of a long valley, on a level plateau 
of the hill from which it took its name, Cnocan an Ceoil 
Sidhe, which means the Hill of Fairy Music, and may, 
approximately, be pronounced *' Knockawn an K'yole Shee." 
The hill melted downwards — no other word can express the 
velvet softness of those mild, grassy slopes — to the shore of 
the River Broadwater, a slow and lordly stream, that moved 
mightily down the wide valley, became merged for a space in 
Lough Kieraun, and thence flowed onwards, broad and brim- 
ming, bearded with rushes, passing like a king, cloaked in 
the splendours of the sunset, to its suicide in the far-away 
Atlantic. The demesne of Mount Music lay along its banks ; 
in woods often, more often in pastures ; with boggy places 
ringed with willows, lovely, in their seasons, with yellow flags, 
and meadowsweet, kingcups, ragwort and loosestrife. Its 
western boundary was the Ownashee, a mountain stream, 
a tributary of the great river, that came storming down from 
the hills, and, in times of flood, snatching, like a border- 
reiver, at sheep, and pigs, and fowl, tossing its spoils in a 
tumble of racing v/aves into the wide waters of its chieftain. 

Mount Music House was large, intensely solid, practical, 
sensible, of that special type of old Irish country-house that 
is entirely remote from the character of the men that origin- 
ated it, and can only be explained as the expiring cry of the 
English blood. How many Anglo-Irish great-great-grand- 
fathers have not raised these monuments to their English 
forbears, and then, recognising their obligations to their 
Irish mothers' ancestry, have filled them, gloriously, with 
horses and i ounds, and butts of claret, an^ hungry poor 
relations unto the fourth and fifth generatron } That they 



MOUNT MUSIC 13 

were a puissant breed, the history of the Empire, in which 
they have so staunchly borne their parts, can tell ; their own 
point of view is fairly accurately summed up in Curran's 
verse : — 

•' If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking, 

Could more than drinking my cares compose, 
A cure for srrrow from sighs I'd borrow. 

And hope to-morrow would end my woes. 
But as in wailing there's nought availing. 

And Death unfailing will strike the blow, 
Then for that reason, and for a season, 

Let us be merry before we go." 

For Dick Talbot-Lowry, however, and many another like 
him, the merriment of his great-grandfather was indifferent 
compensation for the fact that his grandfather's and his father's 
consequent borrowings were by no means limited to cures for 
sorrow. Mortgages, charges, younger children (superfluous 
and abhorrent to the Heaven-selected Head of a Family) — 
all these had driven wedges deep into the Mount Music 
estate. But, fortunately, a good-looking, long-legged, ex- 
Hussar need not rely exclusively on his patrimony, while 
matrimony is still within the sphere of practical politics. 
When, at cbse on forty-one years of age (and looking 
no more than thirty), Dick left the Army, his next step was to 
make what was universally conceded to be " a very nice 
marriage," and on the whole, regarding it from the impartial 
standpoint of Posterity, the universe may be said to have been 
justified in its opinion. 

Lady Isabel Christian was the daughter of an English 
Earl, and she brought with h r to Mount Music twenty 
thousand golden sovereigns, which are very nice things, and 
Lady Isabel herself was indisputably a nice thing too. 
She was tall and fair, and quite pretty enough (as Dick's 
female relatives said, non-committally). She was sufficiently 
musical to play the organ in church (which is also a statement 
pro ided with an ample margin) ; she was a docile and devoted 
wife, a fut-le and extr vagant house-keeper, kindly and un- 
punctual, prolific without re entment ; she regarded with 
mild surprise the large and strenuous family that rushed past 



14 MOUNT MUSIC 

her, as a mountain torrent might rush past an untidy flower 
garden, and, after nearly fourteen years of maternal experience, 
she had abandoned the search for a point of contact with their 
riotous souls, and contented herself with an indiscriminate 
affection for their very creditable bodies. Lady Isabel had 
— if the saying may be reversed — *' les qualites de ses defauts" 
and these latter could have no environment less c itical and 
more congenial than that in whi^ h it had pleased her mother 
to place her. It was right and fitting that the wife of the 
reigning Talbot-Lowry of Mount Music, should inevitably 
lead the way at local dinner-parties ; should, with ladylike 
inaudibleness, declare that " this Bazaar " or " Village 
Hall " was open. It was no mor^ than the duty of Major 
Talbot-Lowry (D.L., and J. P.) to humanity, that his race 
should multiply and replenish the earth, and Lady Isabel 
had unrepiningly obliged humanity to the extent of four 
sons and two daughters. Major Dick's interest in the 
multiplication was, perhaps, more abstract than hers. 

" Yes," he would say, genially, to an enquiring farmer, 
" I have four ploughmen and two dairymaids ! " 

Or, to a friend of soldiering days : *' Four blackguard 
boys 2nd only a brace of the Plentiful Sex ! " 

A disproportion for which, by some singular action of the 
mind, he took to himself considerable credit. 

Miss Frederica C( ppinger (who will presently be intro- 
duced) was accustomed to scandalise Lady Isabel by the 
assertion that paternal affection no more existed in men 
than in tom-cats. An over-statement, no doubt, but one 
that was quite free from malice or disapproval. Undoubtedly, 
a father should learn to bear the yoke in his youth, and Dick 
was old, as fathers go. It cannot be denied that when the 
Four Blackguards began to clamour for mounts with the 
hounds, and the representatives of the Plentiful Sex outgrew 
the donkey. Major Talbot-Lowry had moments of resent- 
ment against his offspring, during which his wife, like a wise 
doe-rabbit, found it safest to sweep her children out of sight, 
and to sit at the mouth of the burrow, having armed herself 
with an appealing headache and a better dinner than usual. 
The children liked him ; not very much, but sufficient for 
general decency and the Fifth Commandment. They loved 
their mother, but despised her, faintly ; (again, not too much 



•I 
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MOUNT MUSIC 15 

for compliance with the Commandment aforesaid). Finally, 
it may be said that Major Dick and Lady Isabel were sincerely 
attached to one another, and that she took his part, quite 
frequently, against the children. 

If, accepting the tom-cat standard of paternitv, Dick 
Talbot-Lowry had a preference for one kitten more than 
another, that kitten was, indisputably. Christian. 

** The litt e devil knows the hounds better than I do ! " 
he would say to a brother M.F.H. at the Puppy Show. " Her 
mcthe • can't keep her out of the kennels. And the hou ds 
are mad about he:". I believe he could take 'em walking- 
cut single-handed ! " 

To which the brother M.F.H. would probably respond 
with perfidious warmth : '* By Jove ! " while, addressing 
that inner confidant, who always r ceives the raciest share of 
any conversation, hz would say that he'd be jiggered before 
he'd let any of his children mess the hounds about with 
petting and nonsense. 

In justice to Lady Isabel, it should be said that she shared 
the visiting M.F.H's view of the position, though regarding 
it from a different angle. 

" Chris^i:m, my dearest child," sh^ said, on the day follow- 
ing the Puppy Show that had coin ided with Christian's 
eighth birthday, when, after a long sea ch, she had discovered 
her youngest daughter, seated, tailor-wise, in one of the 
kennels, the centre of a mat of hounds. *' This is not a fit 
place for you ! You don't know what you may not bring back 
with you " 

'' If you mean fleas. Mother," replied Christian, firmly, 
" the ho nds have none, except what / bring them from 
Yummie." (Yummie was Lady Isabel's dog, a sickly and 
much despised spaniel). " The Hounds ! " Christian 
laughed a little ; the laugh that is the flower of the root of 
scorn. T en her eyes softened and glowed. *' Darlings ! " 
she murmured, kissing wildly the tan head of the uppy 
who, but the day before, had been reft from her charge. 



CHAPTER III 

There are certain persons who are born heralds and 
genealogists ; there are many more to whom these useful 
gifts have been denied. With apologies to both classes, to 
the one for sins of omission, to the other in the reverse sense, 
I find that an excerpt from the Talbot-Lowry pedigree must 
be inflicted upon them. 

With all brevity, let it be stated that Dick Talbot-Lowry 
possessed a father, General "John Richard, and General John 
Richard had an only sister, Caroline. Caroline, fair and hand- 
some, like all her family, was " married off," as was the custom 
of her period, at the age of seventeen, to elderly Anthony 
Coppinger, chiefly for the reason that he was the owner of 
Coppinger's Court, with a \ery comfortable rent-roll, and a 
large demesne, that marched, as to its eastern boundaries, 
with that of Mount Music, and was, as it happened, divided 
from it by no more than the Ownashee, that mountain river 
of which mention has been made. It was, therefore, exceed- 
ingly advisable that the existing friendly relations should be 
cemented, as far as was practicable, and the fair and handsome 
Caroline was an obvious and suitable adhesive. To Anthony 
and Caroline, two children were born ; Frederic , of whom 
more hereafter, and Thomas. By those who lay claim to 
genealogic skill, it will now be apparent that these were the 
first cousins of Dick Talbot-Lowry. Thomas went into the 
Indian Army, and in India met and married a very charming 
young lady, Theresa Quinton, a member of an ancient 
Catholic family in the North of England, and an ardent 
daughter of her Church. In India, a son was born to them, . 
and Colonel Tom, who adored his wife, remarking that these 
things were out o. his line, made no objection to her bringing 

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MOUNT MUSIC 17 

up the son, St. Lawrence Anthony, in her own rehgion, and 
hoped that the matter would end there, Mrs. Coppinger, 
however, remembering St. PauFs injunctions to beheving 
wives and unbelieving husbands, neither stopped nor stayed 
her prayers and exhortations, until, just before the birth of 
a second child, she had succeeded in inducing Tom Cop- 
pinger — (just *' to please her, and for the sake of a quiet 
life," as he wrote, apologetically, to his relations and friends, 
far away in Ireland) — to join her Communion. She then 
died, and her baby followed her. Colonel Tom, a very sad 
and lonely man, came to England and visited St. Lawrence 
Anthony at the school selected for him by his mother ; then 
he returned to his regiment in India, and was killed, within 
a year of his wife's death, in a Frontier expedition. He left 
Larry in the joint guardianship of his sister, Frederica, and 
his first cousin, Dick Talbot-Lowry, with the request that 
the former would live with the boy at Coppinger's Court, 
and that the latter would look after the property until the boy 
came of age and could do so himself ; he also mentioned 
that he wished his son's education to continue on the lines 
laid down by his *' beloved wife, Theresa." 

It must, with regret, be stated, that the relatives and friends 
in far-away Ireland, instead of admiring " poor Tom's " 
fidelity to his wife's wishes, murmured together that it was 
very unfortunate that " poor Theresa " had not died when 
Larry was born, as, in that case, this *' disastrous change of 
religion " would not have taken place. Taking into con- 
sideration the fact that Larry was to live among his Irish 
cousins, it is possible that from the point of view of expediency, 
the relations and friends were in some degree justified. 

Ireland, it is almost superfluous to observe, has long since 
decided to call herself The Island of Saints, an assertion 
akin to the national challenge of trailing the coat-tails, and 
beHevers in hereditary might, perhaps, be justified in assuming 
a strictly celibate sainthood. Be that as it may, Irish people 
have ever been prone to extremes, and, in spite of the proverb, 
there are some extremes that never touch, and chief rmong 
them are those that concern religion. Religion, or rather, 
difference of religion, is a factor in every-day Irish life of 
infinitely more potency than it is, perhaps, in any other 
Christian country. The profundity of disagreement is such 

B 



i8 MOUNT MUSIC 

that in most books treating of Ireland, that are not deliberately 
sectarian, a system of water-tight compartments in such matters 
is carefully established. It is, no doubt, possible to write 
of human beings who live in Ireland, without mentioning 
their religious views, but to do so means a drastic censoring 
of an integral feature of nearly all mundane affairs. This it 
is to live in the Island of Saints. 

In this humble account of the late Plesiosauridse and their 
contemporaries, it is improbable that any saint of any sect 
will be introduced ; one assurance, at least, may be offered 
without reservation. Those differing Paths, that alike have 
led many wayfarers to the rest that is promised to the saints, 
will be treated with an equal reverence and respect. But no 
rash undertakings can be given as touching the wayfarers, 
or even their leaders, who may chance to wander through 
these pages. Neither is any personal responsibiHty accepted 
for the views that any of them may express. One does not 
blame the gramophone if the song is flat, or if the reciter 
drops his h*s. 

After this exhausting exordium it is tranquillising to return 
to the comparative simplicities of the existence of the young 
Talbot-Lowrys. Those summer hoHdays of the year 1894 
were made ever memorable for them by the re-inhabiting of 
Coppinger's Court. Mount Music was a lonely place ; 
it lay on the river, about midway between the towns of 
Cluhir and Riverstown, either of which meant a five or six 
mile drive, and to meet such friends and acquaintances as 
the neighbourhood afforded, was, in winter, a matter confined 
to the himting-field, and in summer was restricted, practically, 
to the incidence of lawn-tennis parties. Possibly the children 
of Mount Music, thus thrown upon their own resources, 
developed a habit of amusing themselves that was as 
advantageous to their caretakers as to their characters. It 
certainly enhanced very considerably their interest in the 
advent of Master St. Lawrence Coppinger. He became the 
subject of frequent and often heated discussions, the opinion 
most generally held, and stated with a fine simplicity, being 
that he would prove to be " a rotter." 

" India," John said, " had the effect of making people 
effemeral." 

" Effeminate, ass ! " corrected Richard, shortly. 



MOUNT MUSIC 19 

** Anyhow," said a Twin, charitably, " we can knock that 
out of him ! " 

"Anyhow," said Judith, next to Richard in age and authority, 
" if he is a rotter, he can go into the Brats' band. You 
want someone decent," she added, addressing the Twin, 
whose remark she felt to have savoured of presumption. 

This family had, for purposes of combat and of general 
entertainment, divided itself into two factions, that fought 
endlessly among the woods and shrubberies. A method had 
been recently introduced by Richard of utilising the harmless, 
necessary pocket-handkerchief as a sling for the projection 
of gravel, and its instant popularity had resulted in the 
denuding of the avenues of ammunition, and in arousing a 
great and just fury in the bosom of the laundress. 

*' God knows it isn't me has all the hankershiffs holed 
this way ! " she pointed out. *' Thim children is the divil 
outlawed. Thim'd gallop the woods all the night, like the deer!" 

The assortment of the family had been decided rather on 
the basis of dignity, than on that of a desire to equalise the 
sides, and thus it befel that Richard, Judith, and John, with 
the style and title of The Elder Statesmen, were accustomed 
to drive before them the junior faction of The Brats, consist- 
ing of the Twins, Christian, and the dogs, Rinka and Tashpy, 
with a monotony of triumph that might have been expected 
to pall, had not variety been imparted by the invention of 
the punishments that were inflicted upon prisoners. There 
had been a long and hot July day of notable warfare. The 
Twins, if small, were swift and wily ; even Christian had 
justified her adoption by a stealthy and successful raid upon 
the opposition gravel heap. A long and savage series of 
engagements had ensued, that alternated between flights, 
and what Christian, blending recollections of nursery doctor- 
ing with methods of Indian warfare, designated *' stomach- 
attacks." It was while engaged in one of the latter forms of 
assault that Christian was captured, and, being abandoned 
by her comrades, was haled by the captors before Richard, 
the Eldest Statesman. A packed Court-martial of enemies 
speedily found the prisoner guilty, and the delicious deter- 
mining of the punishment absorbed the attention of the Court. 
John, with a poet's fancy, suggested that the criminal should 
be compelled to lick a worm. Judith, more practical, 



30 MOUNT MUSIC 

advocated her being sent to the house to steal some jam. 
** I forgot to," she said. 

The Court was held in th^ Council Chamber, a space 
between the birches and hazels on the bank of the Ownashee ; 
a fair and green room, ceiled with tremulous leaves, encircled 
and made secret by high bracken, out of which rose the 
tarnished-silver stems of the birch trees and the multitudinous 
hazel-boughs, and furnished with boulders of limestone, 
planted deep in a green fleece of mingled moss and grass. 
On one side only was it open to the world, yet on that same 
side it was most effectively divided from it, by the swift 
brown stream, speeding down to the big river, singing its 
shallow summer song as it sped. 

Richard, Eldest Statesman, gazed in dark reflection 
upon the prisoner, meditating her sentence ; the prisoner, 
young enough to tremble in the suspense, old enough to 
enjoy the nerve-tension and the moment of drama, gazed back 
at him. Her hair lay in damp rings, and hung in rats'-tails 
about her forehead. Her small face, with the silver-clear 
skin, stippled here and there with tiny freckles, was faintly 
flushed, and moist with the effort of her last great but un- 
availing run for freedom ; her wide eyes were like brown 
pools scooped from the brown flow of the Ownashee. 

" I adjudge," said Richard, in an awful voice, " that the 
prisoner shall amass three buckets of the best gravel. The 
same to be taken from the shallow by the seventh stepping- 
stone." 

The prisoner's little brown arm, with a hand thin and 
brown as a monkey's, went up ; the recognised protest. 

" Not the seventh, most noble Samurai," she said, 
anxiously ; " Won't it do from the strand ? " 

" I have spoken," replied the Eldest Statesman, inflexibly. 

" Then I won't ! " exclaimed Christian ; " I — I couldn't ! 
The river giddys me so awfully when I stand still on the 
stones " 

** Prisoner ! " returned Richard, *' once the law is uttered, 
it can't be unuttered ! Off you go ! " 

" Well then, and I will go ! " said Christian, with a wriggle 
so fierce and sudden that it loosed the grip of her guards. 
It is even possible that the ensuing lightning dart for freedom 
might have succeeded, but for the unfortunate fidelity of 



MOUNT MUSIC 21 

her allies, Rinka and Tashpy. The one sprang at her brief 
skirt and caught it, the other got between her legs. 
She fell, and was delivered again into the hands of the 
enemy. 

Richard was not a bullv, but Mrs. Sarah Battle was not 
more scrupulous than he in observing the rigour of the game. 
Christian was manacled with the belt of her own overall, 
and was hauled along the golden, but despised, gravel of 
the river strand, to the spot whence the stepping-stones 
started. 

** I'll do this much for you," said the Eldest Statesman, 
relaxing a little, " I'll go first and carry the bucket." 

He dragged Christian on to the first of the big, flat, old 
stepping-stones, Judith assisting from the rear, and, with 
increasing difficulty, two more stones were achieved. Then 
they paused for breath, and a sudden whirlwind of passion 
came upon the captive. She began to struc^gle and dance 
upon the flat stone, madly endeavouri.ig to free her hands, 
while she shrieked to the dastard Twins to come to her rescue. 

" Cowards ! Cowards ! I hate you all " 

** Better let her go," whispered Judith, who knew better 
than her Chief what Christian's storms meant. 

Richard hesitated, and, as in a mediseval romance, at this 
moment a champion materialised. 

Not the Twins, lying like leopards along the higher boughs 
of a neighbouring alder, deeply enjoying the spectacle, but 
a boy, smaller than Richard, who came crashing through 
the bushes on the Coppinger's Court side of the Ownashee. 
Arrived at the ford, he stayed neither his pace nor his stride, 
and before the Eldest Statesman, much hampered by his 
prisoner and the bucket, could put up any sort of defence, 
the unknown rescuer had sprung across the stepping-stones, 
and, catching him by the shoulders, had, by sheer force of 
speed and surprise, hurled him into the river. 

Thus did Larry Coppinger, informally but effectively, 
introduce himself to his second-cousins, the Talbot-Lowrys. 



CHAPTER IV 

A FORTNIGHT or SO after the moving incidents that have just 
been ecited, Miss Frederica Coppinger, and her nephew, 
St. Lawrence of that ilk, were spending a long and agreeable 
Sunday afternoon with their relatives at Mount Music, 
elders and youngers being segregated, after their kind, and 
to their mutual happiness. 

Major Talbot-Lovvry, very well pleased with himself, very 
tall and authoritative, was standing, from force of hab it, 
on the rug in front of the fire-place in the Mount Music 
drawing-room, and was cross-examining Miss Coppinger 
on her proposed arrangements for herself and her nephew, 
while he drank his tea in gulps, each succeeded by burnish- 
ing processes, with a brilliant silk bandanna handkerchief, 
such as are necessitated by a long and drooping moustache. 

All good-looking people are aware of their good looks, 
but the gift of enjoying them, that had been lavishly bestowed 
on Dick, is denied to many ; on the other hand, the companion 
gift, of realising when they are becoming pleasures of memory, 
had been withheld from him. Dick was of the happy tem- 
perament that believes in the exclusive immortality of his own 
charms, and he was now enjoying his conversation with his 
cousin none the less for the discovery that Miss Coppinger, 
who was younger than he, had preserved her youth very 
much less successfully than he had done. 

The cross-examination had moved on to the subject of 
Larry's religioUj and the combative fervour of Major Dick's 
Protestantism might have edified John Knox. 

22 



MOUNT MUSIC 23 

" But look here, Frederica," he said, putting down his cup 
and saucer, with a crash, on the high mantelpiece, " you 
don't mean to tell me that the boy has to go to Mass with the 
servants — on the cook's lap, I suppose — on the outside car ! 
Good Heavens ! Poor old Tom ! Talk about turning in 
his grave ! I should think he was going head over heels 
in it by this time ! " 

This referred to the late Colonel Coppinger, the genuine- 
ness of whose conversion to his wife's Church had never 
been accepted by Major Talbot-Lowry. 

" My dear Dick ! " said Lady Isabel. 

Miss Coppinger closed her lips tightly with an air of high 
self-control. 

" That is a matter of opinion ! " she said blandly. " Tom 
was perfectly aware of what changing his religion involved, 
in this country — though it's probably quite different in India. 
In any case, the thing is done, and as I believe it to be my 
Duty to send Larry to his chapel, to his chapel he shall go ! " 

Unimaginative people, or those of limited vocabulary 
affixed to Miss Coppinger the ancient label : "A typical old 
maid," and considered that no further definition was required ; 
and, since her appearance conformed in some degree with 
stage traditions, there is something to be said for them. 
If labels are to be employed, even the least complex of human 
beings would suggest a much-travelled portmanteau, covered 
with tags and shreds from hotels and railways. Frederica 
shall not be labelled ; let it suffice to say that she was tall 
and thin, and nearer fifty than fort^^ (which was a far greater 
age thirty years ago than it is now), and that she had a sense 
of fair play that was proof against her zeal as an Irish Church- 
woman. It is true that she mentioned what she regarded as 
the disaster of Larry's religion in her prayers, but she did so 
without heat, leaving the matter, without irreverence, to the 
common sense of Larry's Creator, who, she felt must surely 
recognise the disadvantages of the position as it stood. 

*' I cannot possibly interfere with Larry's religion," pur- 
sued Miss Coppinger, wuth a defiant eye on her cousin, 
** and as soon as we are a little more settled down I shall ask 
the priest to lunch. Farther than that I don't feel called 
upon to go." 

*' Draw the line at dinner, eh ? " said Major Dick, with 



24 MOUNT MUSIC 

large and humorous tolerance : " / know very little about 
the feller — he's newly come to the parish — he mayn't be a 
bad sort for all I know — I'm bound to say he's got a black- 
muzzled look about him, but we might go farther and fare 
worse. I should certainly have him to lunch if I were you. 
Have a good big joint of roast beef, and don't forget to give 
him his whack of whisky ! " 

*' I never have whisky in the house," said Miss Coppinger 
repressively. '' Claret, I could give him ? " 

Major Talbot-Lowry looked down at his cousin with the 
condescending amusement that he felt to be the meed of 
female godliness especially when allied with temperance 
principles. 

" Well, claret might do for once in a way," he conceded, 
shaking his long legs to take the creases out of his trousers, 
** and you mightn't find Father Sweeny so anxious to repeat 
the dose — and that mightn't be any harm either ! I daresay 
you wouldn't object to that, Frederica ! Well, good-bye, 
ladies ! I'm going down to the kennels " 

Lady Isabel's and Miss Coppinger's eyes followed him, as 
he swung, with that . light halt in his leisurely stride, down the 
long drawing-room, trolling in the high baritone, that some- 
one had pleased him by likening to a cavalry trumpet, 

** Oh, Father McCann was a beautiful man, 
But a bit of a rogue, a bit of a rogue ! 
He was full six feet high, he'd a cast in his eye, 
And an illigant brogue, an illigant brogue ! " 

In both his wife's and his cousin's faces was the same 
look, the look that often comes into women's faces when, 
unperceived, they regard the sovereign creature. Future 
generations may not know that look, but in the faces 
of these women, born in the earlier half of the nineteenth 
century, there was something of awe, and of indulgence, 
of apprehension, and of pity. Dick was so powerful, so 
blundering, so childlike. Miss Frederica expressed something 
of their common thought when she said : 

*' Dick seems to forget that he is Larry's guardian as well 
as I. Also that Larry is a Roman Catholic, and it is not 
only useless but dishonourable to ignore it ! " 



MOUNT MUSIC 25 

It has been said that Lady Isabel had les qiialitis de scs 
defauts ; in Miss Coppinger's case the words may be restored 
to their rightful sequence. She had the inevitable defauts 
de ses qualites. The sense of duty was as prominent a feature 
of her soul as a lump on her long straight back would have 
been, but toleration was inconspicuous. She ran straight 
herself, and though she could forgive deviations on the part 
of others, she could not forget them. She was entirely and 
implacably Protestant, a typical member of that Church 
that expects friendship from its votaries, but leaves their 
course of action to their own consciences. It was a very 
successful example of the malign humour of Fate that Miss 
Coppinger's ward should belong to the other Church, that 
exacts not only obedience, but passion, and it was a mxasier- 
stroke that Frederica's sense of duty should compel her to 
enforce her nephew to compliance with its demands. 

*' Dear Frederica, Dick will leave all religious things to 

you, I know " warbled Lady Isabel, in her gentle, musical 

voice, that suggested something between the tones of a wocd 
pigeon and an ocarina. *' And they couldn't be in better 
hands i " 

** But my dear Isabel, that is precisely what I complain of ! 
Dick's solitary suggestion has been that we should send Larry 
to Winchester, which is perfectly impracticable ! I 
entirely agree with him, but, unfortunately. / know that it 

is our duty to send him to one of those " Miss Cop- 

pinger hesitated, swallowed several adjectives, and ended with 
Christian tameness — " one of those special schools for 
Roman Catholics." 

** Well, dear, I daresay it won't make very much difference," 
consoled Lady Isabel. " I have always heard that Monks- 
hurst was a charming school, and dear Larry will be so well 
off — I don't suppose his religion will interfere in any way. 
It seldom does, does it ? " 

" Not, I admit, unless he wanted a job in this country ! " 
began Miss Coppinger grimly, and again remembered that 
intolerance was not to be encouraged. " The end of it is 
that I shall endeavour to do my duty — which is, apparently, 
to do everything that I most entirely disapprove of — and that 
on the day Larry is twenty-one, I shall march out of 
Coppinger's Court, and dance a jig, and then he may have 



26 MOUNT MUSIC 

the Pope to stay with him if he Hkes ! " 

While Miss Coppinger was thus belabouring and releasing 
her conscience in the drawing-room, quite another matter 
was engaging the attention of her ward, and of his entertainers 
at the school-room tea-table. This was no less a thing 
than the dissolving of the existing Bands, and the formation 
of a new society, to be known as " The Companions of 
Finn." 

Larry Coppinger's entrance, literally at a bound, into the 
Talbot-Lowry family group, had landed him, singularly 
enough, into the heart of their affection and esteem. He 
was now the originator of this revolutionary scheme, and 
having in him that special magnetic force that confers leader- 
ship, the scheme was being put through. 

" The point is," he said, eagerly, *' that when we are split 
up into two bands, we can do nothing much, but the lot of 
us together might — might make quite a difference." 

" Difference to what ? " said RichaLd, ex-chief of the Elder 
Statesmen, unsympathetically. Like his father before him, 
he disliked change. 

" Well, hold on ! " said Larry, quickly, " wait just one 
minute, and I'll tell you. I got the notion out of a book I 
found in the library. I don't expect Id have thought of 

it myself " Larry's transparent sky blue eyes sought 

Richard's appealingly. " It's — it's only poems, y u know, 
but it's most frightfully interesting — I brought it with me — " 

" Oh — poems ! " said Richard, without enthusiasm. ** Are 
they long ones ? " 

" I don't seem to care so awfully much ibout poetry," 
abetted Judith, late Second-in-command. 

John looked sapient, and said, neutrally, that some poetry 
wasn't bad. 

The Twins, who were engaged in a silent but bitter struggle 
for the corpse of a white rabbit, recently born dead, made no 
comment. Only Christian, her small hands clenched together 
into a brown knot, her eyes fastened on Larry's flushed face, 
murmured : 

" Go on, Larry ! " 

Larry went on. 

" It's called the Spirit of the Nation," he said. " It's 
full of splendid stuff about Ireland, and the beastly way 



MOUNT MUSIC 27 

England's treated her. It sort of — sort of put the notion 
into my head that we might start some sort of a Fenian band, 
and that some day we might — well," he turned very red, 
and ended with a rush, " we might be able to strike a blow for 
Ireland ! " 

" Moy oye ! " said Richard, intensifying his favourite invoca- 
tion in his surprise, *' but's what's wrong with Ireland ? " 

The position wanted but the touch of opposition. Larry 
rather well bet Richard that there was plenty wrong with 
her ! Penal laws ! Persecution ! Saxon despots grinding 
their heels into a down-trodden people ! Revolution ! 
Liberation ! Larry had a tongue that was hung loosely 
in his head and was a quick servant to his brain. 

*' Of course I know we're rather 5^oung — well, you're nearly 
fourteen, Richard, and I'm thirteen and three months, that's 
not so awfully young. Anyway, everything's got to have a 

beginning " He glowed upon his audience of six, 

his fair hair in a shock, his eyes and his cheeks in a blaze, 
and one, at least, of that audience caught fire. 

The Revolutionary or Reformer, who hesitates at becoming 
a bore, is unworthy of his high office ; and Larry, like most 
of his class, required but little encouragement. He produced 
a large book, old and shabby, the green and gold of its covers 
stained and faded, but still of impressive aspect. 

" There are heaps of them, and they're all jolly good. 

It's rather hard to choose " began the Revolutionary 

with a shade of nervousness. Then he again met Christian's 
eyes, shining and compelling, and took heart from them. 

"Well, there's " Fontenoy," of course that's a ripper — 
Weil, I don't know what you'll all think, but / think this is 
a jolly good one," he said with a renewal of defiance, and 
began to read, at first hurriedly, but gathering confidence and 
excitement as he went on : 



i( 



Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Ow^en Roe O'Neill ? 
Yes, they slew with poison, him they feared to meet with 

steel. 
May God wither up their hearts ! May their blood cease 

to flow ! 
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Owen Roe ! 



28 MOUNT MUSIC 

We thought you v/ould not die — we were sure you would 

not go, 
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromweirs cruel blow — 
Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky — 
Oh ! Why did you leave us, Owen ? Why did you die : " 



The Elder Statesmen listened in critical silence, while 
Larry, not without stumbles, stormed on through the eight 
verses of the poem. When he had finished it, there was a 
pause. The audience were impressed, even though they had 
no intention of admitting the fact. Christian gave a 
tremendous sigh. The contest for the defunct rabbit, that 
had been arrested, broke out again, fiercely, but with caution. 
Then Richard said, dubiously : 

'' Well, that's all right, Larry — I meant it's jolly sad, and 
awfully good poetry, I'm sure — but how on earth are you 
going to work a show out of it ? I can't see " 

** Unless," interrupted Judith, thoughtfully, " unless we 
sort of acted it ? " 

John, who loved *' dressing up," woke to life ; even Richard 
began to see daylight. 

** That's not a bad notion, Judy ! " he said briskly : *' bags 
I Cromwell ! Larry, you can be Owen what's-his-name." 

Larry came down like a shot bird from the sphere of 
romance to which the poem had borne him. 

'* I hadn't thought of any scheme," he said, pulling himself 
together ; "I only wanted to give you a kind of notion of 
the rotten way England's always treated Ireland " 

" But let's ! " cried Christian ; " let's act the whole book ! " 

Truism^s are of their essence dull, but they must sometimes 
be submitted to, and the truism as to a book's possible 
influence on the young and impressionable cannot here be 
avoided. What it is that decides if the book is to stamp 
itself on the plastic mind, or if the mind is to assert itself 
and stamp on the book, is a detail that admits less easily of 
dogmatism. The Companionage of Finn remained in being 
for but two periods of holiday. Before the boys had returned 
to school, it had seen its best days ; the scheme for an armed 
invasion of England had been abandoned, even the more 
matured project of storming Dublin Castle was set aside ; 



MOUNT MUSIC 29 

by the end of the Christmas hoHdays, it had been formally 
dissolved. 

It is not easy to understand, it is still harder to explain 
what it was in those fierce denunciations and complaints, 
outcome of that time of general revolt, the '* Pv.oaring Forties " 
of the nineteenth century, that made them echo in Larry's 
heart, nor why the restless, passionate spirit that inspired 
them should have remained with him, a perturbing influence 
from which he never wholly escaped. His young soul 
burned with hatred of England, borrowed from the Bards of 
*' The Nation " Office ; he lay awake at nights, stringing 
rhymes in emulation of their shouts of fury, or picturing 
rebellions, of which he was to be the leader and hero. Larry's 
enthusiasms were wont to devour not him only, but also his 
friends. It is impossible to escape from the conclusion that 
the career of the Companionage of Finn was abbreviated by 
Larry's determination to recite to the Companions of the 
Order, in season and out of season, the poems by which, 
during his first Irish summer, he was possessed. There came 
a time when he had, as he believed, put away childish things, 
that, returning to these venerable trumpet-blasts, he asked 
himself, in the arrogance of youth, how these stale metaphors, 
these conventional phrases, these decorations as meretricious 
as stage jewellery, and metres that cantered along, as he told 
himself, like solemn old circus-horses, could have had the 
power to shake his voice and fill his eyes with tears, as he 
spoke them to Christian, who had so soon become his sole 
audience. 

The strange thing was, as he acknowledged to himself, 
that while he could mock at them as poetry, he could not 
ignore their power. The intensity of their hatred, and of 
their sincerity, made itself felt, as the light of the sun will 
shine through the crude commonness of a vulgar stained- 
glass window. 



CHAPTER V 

There was one person who viewed the enthusiastic intimacy 
that had sprung up between the houses of Coppinger and 
Taibot-Lowry, with a disapproval as deep as it was prejudiced. 
He was a person whose opinion might, by the thoughtless, 
be considered unimportant, but in this the thoughtless 
would greatly err. Robert Evans was the butler at Mount 
Music. He had held that position since the year 1859, 
from which statement a brief and unexacting calculation 
will establish the fact that he had taken office when his present 
master was no more than twenty-one years old, and, it being 
now 1894, he had so continued for 35 years. Possibly a 
vision of an adoring and devoted retainer may here present 
itself. If so, it must be immediately dispelled. In Mr. 
Evans* opinion, such devotion and adoration as the case 
demanded, were owed to him by the House on which he had 
for so long a time bestowed the boon of his presence, and 
those who were privileged with his acquaintance had no 
uncertainty in the matter, since his age, his length of service, 
his fidelity, and the difficulties with which he daily contended, 
formed the main subjects of his conversation. 

In the palmier days of the Irish gentry there were many 
households in which the religion of the servants was a matter 
of considerable importance, and those who could afford 
exclusiveness, were accustomed to employ only Protestants 
as indoor servants. This may seem like an unwarrantable 
invasion of the inner fortress of another individual, making 
his views spiritual responsible for his fortunes temporal. 
But in Ireland, in the earlier half of the troubled nineteenth 
century, such differentiation was inspired not by bigotry, 

30 



MOUNT MUSIC 31 

but by fear. When a man's foes might be, and often were, 
those of his own household, that his servants should be of 
his own religion was almost his only safeguard against 
espionage. There is somewhat to be said on both sides ; 
it will not be said here, but that there have been times in Ireland 
when such precautions were required, cannot be ignored. 

Robert Evans was a survivor of such a period. Time was 
when he stratted, autocratic and imperious as a turkey-cock, 
ruler of a flock of lesser fowl, all of his own superior creed ; 
brave days when he and Mrs. Dixon, the housekeeper, 
herded and headed, respectively, a bevy of " decent Pro- 
testant maids " into Family Prayers every morning, and packed 
" the full of two covered cars " off to Knockceoil Parish 
Church on Sundays. Evans rarely went to church, believing 
that such disciplines were super^uous for one in a state of 
grace, but the glory of the House of Talbot-Lowry demanded 
a full and rustling pew of female domestics, while the coach- 
man, and a footman or a groom, were generally to be relied 
on to give a mascuHne stiffening to the party. With Lady 
Isabel's regime had come a slackening of moral fibre, a culp- 
able setting of attainments, or of convenience, above creed, 
in the administration of the household. Once had Lady 
Isabel been actually overheard by Evans, offering to a friend, 
in excuse for the indifferent show made by her household 
in the parish church, the offensive explanation that " R.C.'s 
were so sympathetic, and so easy to find, while Protestants 
were not only scarce, but were so proud of being Protestants, 
and expected so mucli admiration " — here she had perceived 
the presence of Evans, and had unavailingly begun upon the 
weather, but Evans' deep-seated suspicions as to the laxity 
of the English Church had been confirmed. 

It is possible that the greatest shock that Evans was capable 
of sustaining was administered when he heard of the secession 
to the enemy of Colonel Tom Coppinger. Only second 
to it was the discovery that Colonel Tom's poisoned offspring 
was to be received at Mount Music and admitted to the fellow- 
ship of its children. 

** No ! " Evans said to Mrs. Dixon, standing on the hearth- 
rug in the sanctuary of the housekeeper's room, one wet 
afternoon, shortly after the Coppinger return : *' I see changes 
here, better and worse, good and bad, but I didn't think I'd 



32 MOUNT MUSIC 

live to see what I seen to-day — the children of this house 
consorting with a Papist ! " 

*' Fie ! " said Mrs. Dixon, without conviction. She was 
fat and easy-tempered, and though ever anxious to con- 
ciliate him whom she respected and feared as " Mr. Eevans," 
her powers of dissimulation often failed at a pinch of this 
kind. 

Mr. Evans looked at his stable-companion with a contempt 
to which she had long been resigned. He was a short, 
thin, bald man, with a sharp nose curved like a reaping- 
hook, iron-grey whiskers and hair, and fierce pale blue eyes. 
Later on. Christian, in the pride of her first introduction to 
Tennyson, had been inspired by his high shoulders and black 
tailed coat to entitle him " The many- wintered crow," and 
the name was welcomed by her fellows, and registered in 
the repository of phrases and nicknames that exists in all 
well-regulated families. 

" ' Fie ! ' " he repeated after Mrs. Dixon, witheringly. 
" I declare before God, Mrs. Dixon, if I was to tell you the 
Pope o' Rome was coming to dinner next Sunday, it's all 
you'd say would be * Fie ! ' " 

Mrs. Dixon received this supposition of catastrophe with 
annoying calm, and even reverted to Mr. Evans' earlier 
statement in a manner that might have bewildered a less 
experienced disputant than he. 

*' Well, indeed, Mr. Eevans," she said, appeasingly, "I'd 
say he was a nice child enough, and the very dead spit of the 
poor Colonel. I dunno what harm he could do the children 
at all ? " 

The Prophet Samuel could scarcely have regarded Saul, 
when he offered those ill-fated apologies relative to King 
Agag, with a more sinister disfavour than did Evans view Mrs. 
Dixon. 

** I'll say one thing to you, Mrs. Dixon," he said, moving 
to the door with that laborious shuffle that had inspired one of 
the hunted and suffering tribe of his pantry-boys to the ejacu- 
lation : *' I thank God, there's more in his boots than what 
there's room for ! " — *' and I'll say it once, and that's enough ! 
As sure as God made little apples, trouble and disgrace will 
follow jumpers ! " 

Mrs. Dixon, no less than Evans, disapproved of those who 



MOUNT MUSIC 33 

changed their religion, but this denunciation did not seem to 
her to apply. 

** That poor child's no jumper ! " she called after her 
antagonist ; " 'twasn*this fault he was born the way he was !" 

Evans slammed the door. 

Mrs. Dixon dismissed the controversy from her easy mind, 
looked at the clock, and laid down her knitting. 

** Miss Christian '11 be looking for her birthday cake ! " 
she said to herself, hoisting her large person from her chair. 
Even as she did so, there came a rapping, quick and urgent, 
at the window. '* Look at that now ! " said Mrs. Dixon 
" I wouldn't doubt that child to be wanting the world in her 
pocket before it was made ! " 

" Dixie ! Dixie ! Ooen the window ! Hurry ! I want 
you ! " 

Christian's face, surmounted by a very old hunting-cap, 
and decorated with a corked moustache, appeared at 
the window. 

*' The Lord save us, child ! What have you done to your- 
self } And what are you doing out there in the wet ? " 
answered Mrs. Dixon, reprovingly ; " sure the cake won't 
be baked for ten minutes yet." 

** I don't want the cake. I only want some biscuits, please, 
Dixie, and hurry ! Amazon's bolted, and Cottingham's 
asked me to catch her ! If you had a bone, Dixie, she'd 
simply " 

Mrs. Dixon was gone. She disapproved exceedingly of 
Christian's role as kennel-boy, but as, since Christian's first 
birthday, she had never refused her anything, she was not 
prepared on her tenth to break so well-established a habit. 

" I dunno in the world why Mr. Cottingham should make a 
young lady like you do his business ! " she said, putting the 
requisitioned bait into Christian's eager, up-stretched hands, 
" and if your Mamma could see you " 

'* Oh, well done, Dixie ! What a lovely bone ! Oh, 
thank you most awfully ! " interrupted Christian, snatching 
at the dainties provided, and flitting away through the grey 
veils of the rain, a preposterous little figure, clad in a ragged 
kennel-coat, that had been long since discarded by the hunts- 
man, a pair of couples slung round her neck, and a crop in 
her hand, 
c 



34 MOUNT MUSIC 

It was a chilly, wet August afternoon. It had rained for 
the past three days, and was, by all appearances prepared 
to continue to do so for three more. Christian ran across 
the fields to the kennels, regardless of wet overhead or under- 
foot, and oblivious of the corked moustache, which ran too, 
almost as fast as she did. She had made a detour to avoid the 
schoolroom windows. Her birthday party was toward, 
and charades (accounting for her moustache) were in full 
swing. But the message from Cottingham, secretly conveyed 
together with the couples, by the pantry boy, transcended in 
importance all other human affairs. She had slipped away 
from her fellows, and having endued the hunting cap and the 
kennel coat, as the wear suitable to such an occasion, she had 
not lost a minute in coming to the horn. 

Cottingham, Major Talbot-Lowry's First Whip and kennel 
huntsman, a single-souled little Devonshire man, whose 
dyed hair was the solitary indication of the age it was intended 
to conceal, awaited her outside the kennels. 

*' Well, Missie, I knew you'd come," he said, approvingly. 
** It's Amazon that's away — that little badger-pye bi'ch we 
got last week — I 'ad to give 'er a bit of a 'iding — she tried to 
run a sheep when we was walkin' out last evening — she's a 
rewengeful sort, she is, and very artful, and when we gets 
near kennels, her took an' bolted past Jimmy over the 'ill, 
an' I says to Jimmy, * Why you fool ' I says " 

The tale continued at length, and with those repetitions 
and recapitulations peculiar to the simple, but by no means 
short annals of the poor, and especially of the English poor. 
Yet, Christian, the impatient, the ardent, stood and listened 
with respectful and absorbed interest. Cottingham might 
be elderly, egotistic, long-winded, but at this period of her 
career. Christian's hot heart beat throb for throb with his, 
and the thought, as he said, of " that pore little bitch stoppin* 
out, and maybe spoilt, so that there'd be nothin' for us but 
to shoot her, through learnin' to run sheep," had precisely 
the same horror for her as for him. 

" I couldn't, so to speak, lay me 'and on 'er now ; her 
wouldn't let me go anear 'er, nor she wouldn't let Jimmy 
neither, but she ain't far away, and she'd 'ave what I might 

call cawnfidence in you, Missie " Cottingham had at 

ength concluded : *' Her's that sly we mightn't never see 



MOUNT MUSIC 35 

'er again ! But you take and go up that 'ill, Missie, that's 
where I seen 'er last, I'll lay you get 'er if anyone can ! " 

Christian, " still," as Rossetti says, " with the whole of 
pleasure," received these instructions reverently, and with 
the pockets of the kennel-coat further loaded with broken 
biscuit, " took and went " according to instructions. She 
climbed the fence behind the kennels, and addressed herself 
lightly to the ascent of the hill. It was a long hill, that began 
with pasture fields, that were merged imperceptibly into 
moorland, heather and furze. There were sheep, and donkeys 
and goats on it, and a melancholy old kennel-horse or two, all 
feeding peacefully. Amazon could not be accused in con- 
nection with them, so Christian reflected, and prepared herself 
to rebut any such slander. The rain was lighter, and the 
soaking mist that had all day filled the valley, was slowly 
thinning, and revealing the m'ghty scroll of silver that was 
the river, while the woods and hillsides came and went, 
illusive as the grey hints of landscape in a Japanese water- 
colour. But at the mature age of ten years. Christian cared 
for none of these things. She saw the smoke from the Mount 
Music kitchen chimney blending bluely with the mist, and 
thought with a momentary pang of the birthday cake. She 
wondered if the Companions of Finn would so far forget 
honour and fidelity as to devour it without her. She thought 
of the ten candles that would gutter to their end, untended 
by the heroine of the celebration ; she wondered if Cotting- 
ham would tell Papa, and if Papa would tell Mother ; (thus 
did this child of the 'eighties speak of her parents, the musical 
abbreviations of a later day, " Mum," and *' Dad," not having 
penetrated the remoteness in which her home was placed) ; 
she aho wondered if there would be a row about her getting 
wet. All these things seemed but too probable, but she was 
in for it now. 

Near a ridge of the hill, in one of the shallow valleys that 
furrowed, like ploughshares, its l.jng slant, there was a dolmen, 
three huge stones, with a fourth poised on them. Their 
grey brows rose over the billows of bracken, and briers, laden 
with the promise of fruit, made garlands for their ancient 
heads. Christian's straying advance brought her along the 
lip of the little valley in which they reposed, and quite sud- 
denly there rose in her the conviction that her quest was nearing 



36 ^ MOUNT MUSIC 

success. She was of that mysteriously-gifted company to 
whom the lairs of things lost are revealed. She '* found 
things " ; she was " lucky." She was regarded by the 
servants as one enfolded in the cloak of St. Anthony, that 
inestimable saint, whose mission it is to find and protect the 
lost. It had become a household habit to appeal to Christian 
when one of every day's most common losses occurred. She 
would hearken ; her little thin body would stiffen, like a dog 
setting his game, a spark would light in her brown eyes, and 
— how led who can say ? — she would fly like a wireless message 
to the thing sought for. 

So it was now, on the furzy side of Cnocan an Ceoil Sidhe ; 
she knew that the moment had come. She sat down on a 
ledge of rock, and waited, throbbing with anticipation, and 
had not long to wait. A brown shadow moved in the bracken 
i ear the dolmen, a brown face peered with infinite caution, 
round a flank of the great stones. 

" Yoop ! the little bitchie ! " said Christian to the horizon. 
Christian was an apt scholar, and Cottingham's tone and 
idiom were alike accurately rendered. 

The lady thus addressed gazed with a greater intensity, 
but did not move. Christian took a piece of dog-biscuit 
from the ragged pocket of the kennel-coat, and, still walking 
closely in Cottingham's steps, bit it, ate a part of it, and care- 
lessly flung the remainder in the direction of the shadow. 
This stole forth, and, having snapped up the biscuit, sank 
back into the covert. Christian did not move. 

" Amazon ! " she crooned, in tones in which a doting wood- 
pigeon might apostrophise a sickly fledgling ; " Amazon, 
my darling ! " 

Another piece of biscuit accompanied the apostrophe, 
and poor Amazon, who was indeed very lonely and very 
hungry, capitulated, and came sidling up to the charmer, 
with propitiatory smiles, and deprecating stern wagging, 
beneath her, and in advance of her hind leg , instead of above 
her and behinh them. 

** 'Olding the buckle in the right 'and," said Christian to 
herself, in faithful quotation from the great ensample, as with 
a swiftness and decision that were creditable to her training, 
she put the couples on Amazon. 

Then she produced the bone that had been " Dixie's " bright 



MOUNT MUSIC 37 

achievement, and it was while, in contentment and friend- 
ship, Amazon was crunching it, that Larry Coppinger appeared. 

He rose from behind a spur of rock and furze, and came 
towards Christian. 

" Oh, good for you ! " he said, admiringly, " I was afraid 
to show up till you had got her." 

Christian was not sure that she was pleased at this 
intervention. 

*' How did you know where I was ? '* 

" The servants told me you had gone to the kennels, and 
Jimmy showed me the hill, and then I spotted your white 
coat — not that it's so awfully white ! — I thought it was rather 
rotten to let you go alone." 

'* And why not, pray ? " enquired Christian, haughtily. 
Male assumption of the duties of guardianship was a thing 
she found highly offensive ; "I always go about alone ! " 

" Well, I wanted to come, anyway," said Larry, with a 
placating grin. '* I say, that is an awful nice dog ! " 

" You never call foxhounds *dogs ' ! " said Christian, still 
with hauteur ; " Larry, you are an owl ! " 

But she enjoyed the consciousness of knowing more than 
he did ; she even forgave him his superfluousness. She 
thought it was rather decent of him to have come, and she 
let him lead Amazon for a part of the way, only reserving 
to herself the entry into the presence of Cottingham, bringing 
her sheaf with her. 



CHAPTER VI 

Are childhood and youth indeed Vanity ? When Christian 
looks back upon her childhood at Mount Music, it seems to 
her that the World, and Life, and Time, could hardly have 
bettered it for her, however they might have put their heads 
together over the job. 

All her memories are steeped in sunlight. It was all fun 
and fights, and strawberries and dogs, and donkey-riding, 
and hot evenings on the big river, with the hum of flies in 
her ears, and Larry, hailing her from the farther bank of the 
Ownashee, across the stepping-stones. And whenever she 
thought about the schoolroom, it was always warm and rather 
jolly, especially in the Christmas holidays. They used to 
have drawing competitions, of which Larry was, of course, 
the promoter, in the old schoolroom, during the long winter 
evenings. Larry always had a pencil in his hand, and was 
renowned as an artist of horses and hounds, and Finn's 
wolf-dog. Bran, besides wielding a biting pen as a caricaturist. 
Christian could only compete in architectural designs that 
demanded neatness and exactness, but Georgy, the elder twin, 
had some skill in marine subjects, and, since he was going to the 
" Britannia," arrogated to himself the position of being an 
authority on shipping ; so much so, indeed, that general 
satisfaction was felt when he was, one evening, worsted by 
Christian. The subject selected for competition was " A 
Haunted Ship." 

*' Where shall I put the ghost ? " Georgy debated, chewing 
the end of his pencil, with his head on one side. 

" In the shrouds, of course ! " says Christian. 

** Funny dog ! " sneered Georgy, who considered that his 
artistic efforts were no fit subject for jesting. ** You'd better 

38 



MOUNT MUSIC 39 

come and shove in one of your Midianites for me ! " 

Then Christian, with the disconcerting swiftness of action, 
mental and physical, that was peculiarly hers, snatched, in 
a flash, the mug of painting-water from Larry's elbow, and 
poured its contents over Georgy's fair bullet-head ; with 
which, and with a triumphing cry (learnt from a County Cork 
kitchenmaid, and very fashionable in the schoolroom) of 
" A-haadie ! " she fled, " lighter-footed than the fox," and 
equally subtle and daring. 

Christian was not easily roused to wrath, but when this 
occurred, youngest of the party though she was, it was but 
rarely that victory did not rest with her. Two subjects 
were marked dangerous among these children, during the 
combative years of *' growing up," and were therefore 
specially popular ; of these, the one was Christian's reputed 
occult power, coupled with gibes based on that hymn to which 
reference has been made ; the other was Larry's religion. 

To the Talbot-Lowry children, their own religion was 
largely a matter of fetishes, with fluctuating restrictions as to 
what might or might not be done on Sundays, but they found 
Larry's a more stimulating subject. It was impossible for 
them to refrain from speculations as to what Larry said when 
he went to confession ; equally impossible not to propose 
to the prospective penitent an assortment of sins to be avowed 
at his next shriving, even though the suggestions seldom 
failed to provoke conflict of the intensity usually associated 
with religious warfare. 

Lady Isabel, confronted with these problems, fell back on 
the manuals of her own youth, with their artless pronounce- 
ments on the Righteous, the Wicked, their qualifications, 
their prospects ; and, since the manuals had an indisputable 
flair for the subjects most likely to seize the attention of the 
young. Lady Isabel was generally able to divert her off- 
spring's attention from the Errors of Rome, with digested 
narratives of " Adamaneve " (pronounced as one word) 
and the Serpent, Balaam's Ass, Jonah's Whale, and similar 
non-controversial matters. 

" Wiser people than you and me, darlings," she would say, 
with a slight stagger in grammar, but none in orthodoxy, 
*' have explained it all for us " 

" Larry's papa and mamma didn't quite think the same 



40 MOUNT MUSIC 

as we do, but we needn't think about that, my pet ! " 

" But, mother, Evans says that the Pope " appalling 

prognostications as to the future of that dignitary would 
probably follow. 

Unfortunate Lady Isabel ! But parents and guardians 
have, at least, the power of the closure. 

*' We needn't talk about it now," says the hard-pressed 
mother, " when you're grov/n up you will understand it all 
better " 

With Christian, however, this formula was less efficacious 
than with her elder brothers and sister. Her questioning, 
analysing, unwearying brain ignored the closure, and evaded 
poor Lady Isabel's evasions. Her religious life had been 
singularly vivacious, and the scope and variety of the petitions 
that she nightly offered caused considerable embarrassment 
to her mother. What was any good Church of England, or 
Ireland, mamma to do when an infant of four years implores 
its Deity : 

" Make me to have a good, fat, lively conscience, and even 
if God curses me, help me not to mind a bit ! " 

The scandalised mamma decided that extempore prayer 
must be discouraged, and seeking out in one of the manuals 
a form of prayer of strictly limited range, repressed all 
additions and emendations. 

Obedient to the traditions of her own youth. Lady Isabel, 
as her children successively attained the mature age of six 
years, bestowed Bibles upon them, but it was Christian, 
alone of the family, that applied herself with any diligence to 
the study of the Scriptures. She began with the Book of 
Esther (in which she found a satisfaction that in after life 
remained something of a bewilderment to her), and thence, 
but this was a year or two later, for no reason that can be 
assigned, she passed lightly to the Book of Revelation. With 
it, it may be said, the artistic side of her, that had leaped to 
sympathy with Larry's emotion over *' Dark Rosaleen " 
and " The Spirit of the Nation," awakened, and her artistic 
life began. That glittering, prismatic chapter, that tells of 
the rainbow round about the Throne, in sight like unto an 
emerald, and the Sea of glass, like unto crystal, that was 
before the Throne, and the thunderings and the voices, and 
the Voice as it were a trumpet talking. Christian read the 



MOUNT MUSIC 41 

chapter over and over again, for the sheer glory of the beautiful 
words. She, also, knew of Voices, and Music, that other 
people did not seem to hear. She could understand, and 
could tremble to those strange shouts, and trumpet-blasts, 
and thunderings. 

The Pale Horse that happened after the Fourth Seal was 
broken ! 

She would sit as still as if she were frozen, while she thought 
of the Pale Horse coming crashing through Dharrig Wood, 
with Death on his back, and Hell following with him — she 
always thought of him in that black wood of pine trees 

" Wake up. Christian ! " Miss Weyman, the governess, 
would say. 

One of the Twins would hiss between his teeth : 
*' Christian, dost thou see them } " 

Christian would feel a spiritual bump, as though she had 
been flung off her chair on to the schoolroom floor, and Miss 
Weyman (always enviously spoken of by adjacent mammas 
as " that most sensible little Englishwoman ") would say : 

" I wonder how much you heard of what I was reading 1 
I wish I could see you learning to have a little more con- 
centration ! " 

Whereas, did the excellent Miss Weyman only know it, 
a very little more concentration on Christian's part, and it is 
possible that she, and Judith, and the Twins, might all have 
seen the Pale Horse thundering past the schoolroom windows. 
Stranger things have happened. The Indian rope and bask^ 
trick, for instance. 

'* A most curious child — a perfect passion for animals, 
and so dreamy ^ if you know what I mean," Miss Weyman 
would say to a comrade visitor. *' And the things that she 
seems to have learnt from the huntsman ! But really a nice 
little thing, and clever, too, though a most erratic worker ! 
Now, Judith " Miss Weyman felt there was some satis- 
faction in teaching Judith. She could concentrate, if the 
comrade visitor liked ! Nothing was a difficulty to her ! 
And her memory 1 And her energy — Miss Weyman freely 
admitted that Judith was three years older than Christian, 
but still 

In short, Judith was a credit to any sensible little English- 
woman, but Christian had a way of knowing nothing (as 



43 MOUNT MUSIC 

touching arithmetic, for example), or too much (as touching 
Shakespeare and the Book of Revelation), that implied 
considerable independence as to the instructions of Miss 
Weyman, and no sensible little Englishwoman could be 
expected to enjoy that. 



CHAPTER VII 

It is not peculiar to Irish incomes to fail to develop in response 
to increasing demands upon them. It was, however, a 
distinctive feature of the incomes of those who were Irish 
landlords during the latter years of the Victorian era, to 
shrink in steady response to the difficulties of English govern- 
ment in Ireland. Only Irish people can understand the com- 
plicated processes of erosion to which Dick Talbot-Lowry's 
resources were subjected, or can realise the tests of fortitude 
and endurance to a man of spirit, th^t were involved by the 
visitations of " Commissioners," with their fore-ordained 
mission of lowering Dick's rents, rents that, in Dick's opinion, 
were already philanthropically low. Major Talbot-Lowry, 
like many of his tribe, though a pessimist in politics, was an 
optimist in most other matters, and found it impossible to 
conceive a state of affairs when he would be unable to do — 
approximately — whatever he had a mind for. At the age 
of fifty-eight, fortitude and endurance are something of a 
difficulty for a gentleman unused to the exercise of either of 
these fine qualities, and after keeping the Broadwater Vale 
Hounds, for seventeen years, as hounds should be kept, 
regardless of the caprices of the subscription list, Major- 
Talbot Lowry felt that he had deserved better of his country 
than that he should now have to institute minor economies, 
such as putting his men into brown breeches, foregoing the 
yearly renewal of their scarlet coats, and other like humilia- 
tions. Farther than details such as these, his sense of right 
and wrong did not permit him to go. 

** There are some things that they can't expect a gentle- 
man to do/' he would say to his cousin. Miss Coppinger, 
*' and as long as I keep the hounds " 

*' Then, my dear Dick, if you can't afford them, why keep 
them ?" Frederica would rejoin, with unsparing common sense. 

43 



44 MOUNT MUSIC 

Unmarried ladies of mature age, have, as a rule, learned 
not only fortitude and endurance, but have also mastered 
the fact that ways are governed by means. Those processes 
of erosion, however, to which reference has been made, were, 
comparatively speaking, slow in operation, and there remained 
always Lady Isabel's twenty thousand golden sovereigns, 
as safe and secluded in the hands of trustees (who had a con- 
stitutional disbelief in Irishmen), as if they were twenty 
thousand nuns under the rule of a royal abbess. 

Therefore did Major Talbot-Lowry, M.F.H., and the 
Broadwater Vale Hounds, make a creditable show, brown 
breeches and last season's pink coats notwithstanding, at 
the meet at Coppinger's Court, on December 26th of the year 
1897. The weather was grey and silver, with a light south- 
east wind and a rising glass. Sunshine was filtering down, 
as it were through muslin curtains that might at any moment 
be withdrawn ; some crocuses and snowdrops had appeared 
in the grass round the wide gravel sweep in front of the 
house ; there was a perplexed primrose or two, deceived by 
the sun as to the date ; the scent of the violets in the bed under 
the drawing-room windows, came in delicate whiffs round the 
corner of the house. It would have been impossible to believe 
that but twenty-four hours ago, Christmas hymns had been 
shouted, and Christmas presents presented, had not a group 
of " Wran-Boys " offered irrefutable testimony that this was 
indeed the Feast of Stephen. These, a ragged and tawdry 
little cluster of mummers, shabby survivors of mediaeval 
mysteries, were gathered round their ensign holly-bush 
in front of the hall -door steps. From the holly-bush swung 
the corpse of the wren, and from the throats of the Wran- 
Boys came the song that recounts the wicked wren's pursuit 
and slaughter : 

'* The Wran, the Wran, the King of all birds, 
On Stephenses' Day was cot in the furze. 
And though he is little, his family is great. 
Rise up, good gentlemen, and give us a thrate — Huzzay ! " 

Wherever in South Munster two or three boys were 
gathered together, that song was being sung, and Major 
Talbot-Lowry and his staff had already met so many of such 



MOUNT MUSIC 



45 



companies on their way to the Meet, that their horses' indigna- 
tion at finding a further collection of nightmares at Cop- 
pinger's Court was excusable. 

On the high flight of hall-door steps, stood Larry and Miss 
Coppinger, the former pale with excitement, the latter 
doggedly resigned to the convention that compelled her to 
offer intoxicating drinks to people who, as she said, had but 
just swallowed their breakfasts. Larry had learned many 
things since that day of abysmal ignorance when he had 
spoken of Amazon as a " nice dog." Among his many 
enthusiasms he now included a passion for the chase, and all 
that appertains to its elaborate cult, that complied with 
Christian's, and even Cottingham's, sense of what was 
becoming, and, having dedicated a shelf in the library to 
books on hunting, he had read them all, with the same ardour 
that, four years earlier, he had brought to bear on The 
Spirit of the Nation and Irish history. 

Major Talbot-Lowry looked down, from the top of his 
tall, white-faced chestnut, on his young cousin, and accepted 
the glass of port that Larry reverently offered to him, with a 
pleased appreciation of the reverence. Cousin Dick was not 
invariably pleased with his young cousin. He had gathered, 
hazily, from his wife, such of the tenets of the Companions 
of Finn as she, instructed by Miss Weyman, had been able to 
impart, and had not approved of them, nor of Larry's part 
in introducing them to his young ; also it was annoying 
(especially when he remembered the brown breeches, etc.) 
to think of a young cub of a boy having more money than he 
knew what to do with ; and, finally, and all the time, there 
was that almost unconscious, inbred distrust of Larry's 
religion. 

Nevertheless, it has been said that " wise men live in the 
present, for its bounties suffice them," and Dick, if not vrey 
wise, was very good-natured, and was wise enough to realise 
that the fine weather, and the good horse under him, and even 
Larry's homage, were bounties sufficient unto the day. 

** Got a fox for me, Larry ? That's right. Good boy. 
Where d'ye think we'll find him } " 

" He's using the Quarry Wood earth. Cousin Dick," said 
Larry, breathlessly, with the anxiety of the owner of the 
coverts alight in his eyes. "I'm certain he's there. I 



46 MOUNT MUSIC 

went round with Sullivan myself last night, and we stopped 
the whole place. I bet he'll not get in anywhere ! " 

" Good ! I'll draw the Quarry Wood first," said Cousin 
Dick, with royal benignity. *' You get away outside at the 
western end, and keep a look-out for him." 

A heavy man, on an enormous grey horse, had approached 
the Master, having edged his way through the hounds with 
ostentatious care. He was of a type sufficiently common 
among southern Irishmen, with thick, strong-growing, 
black hair, a large, black moustache, and heavy brows, over- 
shadowing eyes of precisely the same shade of blunted blue 
as his shaven chin. 

*' He's a credit to his breeding, Major ! " said the heavy 
man, indicating Larry with a sandwich from which he had 
taken a bite of the size of one of his horse's hoofs ; " I wish 
we had a few more lads coming on in the country like him ! '* 

" What good are they going to do ? " responded the Master, 
reverting to the pessimistic mood that was d^ily becoming 
more frequent with him ; *' what chance is there for a gentle- 
man in this damned country ? You might as well have a 
mill-stone round your neck as an Irish property these times ! 
What do you suppose will be left to us after the next ' Revision 
of Rents,' as they call it ? " 

" Well, deuce a much indeed," returned Doctor Mangan, 
equably, *' but it mightn't be so bad as that altogether ! I 
have my little girl out for the first time to-day, Major. I 
wonder might I ask your man, that's looking after your young 
ladies, to have an eye to her, too ? " 

Doctor Mangan withdrew with the required permission, 
and with his daughter at his heels, proceeded through the 
assembling riders and carriages, distributing greetings as 
he went. 

Doctor Francis Aloysius Mangan was one of the leading 
doctors in the district of which the towns of Cluhir and 
Riverstown each felt itself to fill the most important place. 
Ireland grows doctors and clergymen with almost equal success 
and profusion. There is in the national character a consider- 
able share of the constituents that are valuable in both 
professions. Power of sympathy, good-nature, intuition, 
adroitness, discernment of character, and a gift for taking 
every man in his humour. Qualities that are perhaps 



MOUNT MUSIC 47 

beside the specialised requirements, but are equally 
indispensable. 

In what degree these attributes were bestowed upon Doctor 
Mangan may gradually be ascertained by the patient reader, 
but in the case of Father David Hogan, P.P., of Riverstown, 
at this juncture in lively converse with the Misses Talbot- 
Lowry, the reader may be spared the exercise of that tire- 
some virtue, and may feel confident that Father Hogan 
failed in none of the qualities that have been enumerated. 
Father David was, indeed, the most popular man in the 
country with all classes and creeds ; he was universally 
known ?:S the Chaplain of the B.V.H., and was accounted 
one of the chiefest glories of the hunt. Major Talbot-Lowry 
was accustomed to boast, in places where such as he congre- 
gate, that He, in His country, had the best priest in Ireland ! 
A real good man. Kept the farmers civil and friendly 
Managed a district for the Fowl Fund. And a topper to 
ride — always at the top of the hunt ! 

" Trust a priest to have a c^ood horse ! " is the rejoinder 
prescribed in such cases, and Major Dick's fellows seldom 
failed to comply with the ritual. 

Father David, stout, jolly, and, like his namesake, of a ruddy 
countenance, mounted upon a black mare as stout and sport- 
ing-looking as himself, was, as Dr. Mangan drew near to 
the Misses Talbot-Lowry, beaming upon these two lambs 
from another fold, and having congratulated Miss Judith 
on the appearance of the grey mare that she was riding (reft 
from Lady Isabel and the victoria), was endearing himself 
to Miss Christian by tales of the brace of hound puppies 
that he was walking for the hunt. 

The advantage of being the youngest member of a large 
family is one that takes a considerable time to mature. 
Christian was thirteen years old before what was left of one 
of the Hunt horses, after seven strenuous seasons of official 
work, was placed at her sole disposal. This residue, battered 
though it was, and a roarer of remarkable power and volume, 
was incapable of falling, and with anything under eight stone 
on its piebald back (piebald from incessant and sedulously 
concealed saddle-galls) could always be trusted to keep within 
reasonable distance of hounds when they ran. It was for- 
tunate for Christian that Judith, now sixteen, and far from a 



4S MOUNT: MUSIC 

feather-weight, had renounced her share in " Harry," and 
had estabhshed a right in the grey mare. Judith was a 
buccaneer. Charles, the coachman, (in connection with the 
commandeering of the grey mare, which he resented) had said 
of her to his respected friend, Mr. Evans : " Ah, ha ! That's 
the young lady that'll get her whack out of the world ! " 

And Mr. Evans' reaping-hook nose had sniffed assent. 

Yet, though Judith was averted, the Christmas holidays 
always held the menace of brothers to be reckoned with 
as rival claimants for Harry. 

" The boys, darling ! " " Unselfishness, darling ! " " After 
the holidays, my child ! " 

Lady Isabel was of the school that inculcated self-denial 
for its daughters, but never for its sons ; (whether from a 
belief that such was inherent in the male sex, or from a fear 
that the effort would be misplaced, it is difficult to say). 
Christian was ever quick to respond to the call for martyr- 
dom, but that the Twins should both maltreat and despise 
the venerable Harry, added a poignancy to renunciation 
that placed it almost beyond attainment. On this day of 
festival, happily, renunciation was not exacted ; other 
attractions had absorbed the Twins, and Christian's rights 
were unchallenged. 

Therefore, it was that the youngest Miss Talbot-Lowry, 
perched on old Harry's broad back, and looking of about 
the same size in relation to it as the *' Wran " to the holly- 
bush, was now blissfully discussing hound-puppies with her 
trusted friend. Father David, and was asking nothing more 
that life could offer. 

Dr. Mangan, meantime, waited, with a permissive smile, 
for the moment to make his " little girl " known to the young 
ladies from Mount Music, and to their cousin, young Larry 
Coppinger. He was in no hurry, and he had often had 
occ sion to agree with Milton (though he had been quite 
unaware of so doing) in thinking that they also serve who 
only stand and wait. 



CHAPTER VIII 

It may be permissible to introduce a meet of hounds at or 
about the end of a chapter, but I feel sure that the ensuing 
run must be given elbow-room. Alarming to many though 
this statement may be, yet it may be said that its foundations 
are laid in truth and equity, and in the necessities of this 
history may be found the justification of the chapter. 

The Quarry Wood had not failed. Larry's fox had been in 
it. To Larry, seated on his stout, bay cob, with a heart 
banging against his ribs, and a soul absorbed into a single 
supplication, had come, suddenly and beautifully, the answer 
to prayer, the ineffable spectacle of a large and lovely fox, 
sliding quietly away, at the right place, at the right moment. 
Life could offer Larry no more ; not then, at all events. 

** Aly coverts — my fox ! " 

Not many boys of sixteen, enthusiasts, endowed with just 
that touch of the poetic tem.perament that can set the brain 
reeling, could know a more wondrous moment. 

Then to see Cousin Dick, blazing and splendid, charging 
out of the wood, " like the man on the red horse in 
Revelation, " as Christian said afterwards — (Christian had 
sneaked away from Charles, the coachman, and had followed 
Larry) — with the hounds flashing around and ahead of him, 
and Cottingham's raspin^ '* Forrad ! Forrad ! " from the 
wood behind, like the blast of a bellows upon flames ! 

Larry had been past speech when that apocalyptic vision 
had materialised in response to his halloa. He had waved 
his hat and cheered the hounds to the line of the fox, but it 
had been unnecessary ; they had not had an instant's un- 
certainty, and had taken hold on their own account with- 
out reference to anyone. 

That the hold taken by the hounds was a firm and assured 

49 

D 



5«> 



MOUNT MUSIC 



one was due, not only to their own virtues, but also to the 
fact t at where the fox had broken, a tract of turf bog met the 
wood, and carried a scent of entire efficiency. What, how- 
ever, it was incapable of carrying were the horses. The 
hounds, uttering their ecstasy in that gorgeous chorus of 
harmonious discordance called Full Cry, sped across the bog 
like a flock of seagulls; but for the riders, a narrow track 
between deep ditches, left by the turf-cutters for their carts, 
was the sole hope, and a string of horses, galloping in single 
file, was soon following hard on the heels of the Master. 
Foremost of them all were Christian and Larry, filled with an 
elation beyond the power of words to convey. The hounds 
were holding steadily right-handed across the bog, and were 
ever widening the distance between them and the riders, 
but it was enough for these two children to be able to keep 
their proud place, next after the Master, and to know that no 
one, not even Cottingham, could deprive them of it. It 
may gravely be questioned if Tommy, the stout bay cob, 
and Harry, the residue of a hunt horse, appreciated a position 
to which they were so little accustomed. Harry, whose 
heart, indisputably in the right place, was possibly the only 
sound item in his outfit, pounded gallantly on, roaring as 
he went, like a Hon seeking after his prey ; but Tommy 
whose labours were, as a rule, limited to mild harness-work, 
was kept going mainly by stress of circumstances, in which 
category Larry's spurs took a prominent part. The bog- 
track at length became merged in a rushy field, and then indeed 
did the pent v/aters of the hunt break forth. Major Dick's 
tall chestnut had gradually increased his lead, and by the 
time the track was clear of riders, he was two fields ahead, 
with Cottingham not far behind, and a few indignant young 
men riding like maniacs to overtake them. To have been 
held back by a schoolboy and a little girl is an indignity not 
easily to be borne. The Broadwater Vale field was a hard- 
going one, including a strengthening of young soldiers from 
the regiment quartered at Riverstown, and it was not long 
before Tommy and Harry were beginning to find themselves 
in a more familiar and less exigent position. Judith, on 
the grey mare, went by them like a flash ; Doctor Mangan 
overtook them heavily, and heavily passed them. Father 
David, riding a little wide of the crowd, waved a friendly 



MOUNT MUSIC 51 

hand to Christian, as the black mare, composed and discreet, 
as became a daughter of the Church, dweh for an instant 
on the top of a wide bank, before she struck off into the next 
field. Worst indignity of all^ Charles, the coachman, on the 
elderly carriage horse, drew alongside, and presumed to offer 
directions and admonitions. " As if," thought Christian, 
as she drove Harry at the bank in the wake of the black mare, 
" I cared a pin what he says ! " 

Gone for poor Charles were the days when Miss Christian 
had revered him above all other created things ; days such 
as the one on which, after a ride round the yard on an un- 
harnessed carriage horse. Christian, in gratitude too great 
for words, had attempted to kiss him. Charles had re- 
pelled the embrace, saying tactfully : *' No pleasures in Lent, 
Miss ! " and Christian had accepted the excuse. Then Miss 
Christian had been three years old, now she was thirteen, 
and Charles had. In the interval, married a cook, and lost his 
figure, and with it, had departed his nerve, and the reverence 
of Miss Christian, and he knew it. 

Close behind Charles came Dr. Mangan's *' little girl," 
who had been confided with a lubricating half-crown, to his 
care. Miss Letitia Mangan was far from considering herself 
a little girl. She was sixteen and a half, and conceived herself 
to be of combatant rank, even though her thick, dark hair 
banged on her back in a ponderous pigtail, and her education 
at the Cluhir Convent School was still uncompleted. The 
fat, piebald pony that she was riding would have a sore back 
before she got home. Christian, perched wren-like on her 
ancient steed (but a wren placed with mathematical accuracy 
of directness with relation to the steed's ears), noted with 
disfavour the crooked seat, the heavy hand on the curb. 
Larry, hot and pink, with hat hanging by its guard, his fair 
hair looking like storm-tossed corn-stooks, noted nothing, 
being wholly engrossed in bitter conflict with Tommy. 
The art of keeping a good start with hounds is not given to 
many, and least of all to the young and inexperienced. From 
having been first of the first, it had fallen to Larry and 
Christian to find themselves last, and last in the despised 
company of Charles and " the Mangan girl." 

The unexacting position of being at the heel of the hunt 
may have a charm for the philosophic or unambitious, but 



52 MOUNT MUSIC 

so black a continuation of so great a start was a trial quite 
beyond the endurance of a young gentleman possessed of 
the artistic temperament. And then the abominable Mangan 
girl came into play, and joined in the circling performance 
at the big bank. Always, when Larry felt that this time the 
cob was going to " have it," that cow-like red and white beast 
would jam itself in the way, so he thought, raging. In this 
matter of hunting. Dr. Mangan had not been well advised 
in his scheme for his little girl's social advantage. 

In the meantime the hounds had run their fox into Drum- 
keen Wood, and the riders, arriving in small and breathless 
companies, thanked God for a check, and tightened their 
girths and took courage. The latter would undoubtedly 
be needed if the run continued ; Drumkeen Wood was hung 
like a cloak upon the side of a steep hill, and was the invariable 
prelude to the worst going within the bounds of the hunt. 

*' If he's into the big earth here, I'm afraid it's good-bye 
to him ! " said Dr. Mangan, taking courage in a liquid form. 
** It was a sweet gallop while it lasted ! Sweet and short, 
like this toothful of cherry brandy I'm after drinking ! " 

" Ah, that's poor stuff. Doctor," said Mr. Hallinan, pro- 
prietor of Hallinan's Hotel, a prosperous hostelry, much 
patronised by salmon-fishers. " Give me a sup of good old 
John Jameson in its purity ! " 

** Twas for Tishy I brought this out," replied the Doctor, 
apologetically ; " but I lost sight of her. She's back some- 
where with little Christian Lowry and young Coppinger." 

•* What sort of a lad is that .? " asked Mr. Hallinan. " Is 
he as big a pup as them young Lowrys ? " 

** Ah, they're not so bad altogether," said Dr. Mangan, 
indulgently. *' Young sprigs like them are none the worse 
for a little tashpy, as the people say ! " The Doctor's heavy 
voice relaxed a little over the word tashpy (which, it should 
perhaps be explained, is Irish, and implies a blend of 
impudence and high spirits). He was quite aware that his 
friend Hallinan and he regarded the Talbot-Lowrys from a 
different standpoint. 

" I was having a bit of lunch there the other day," he went 
on, ** and I thought they were nice boys enough." 

** I hope you got enough to eat ! " said Mr. Hallinan, dis- 
agreeably ; *' Fm told that their butcher's sick and tired 



MOUNT MUSIC 53 

trying to get what he*s owed, out of them ! There should be 
drink enough, anyway ! I'm just after sending in a case of 
whisky there. God knows w^hen I'll be ped for it ! " 

At this moment the two gentlemen, whose horses were 
nibbling the grass of the bank that surrounded the wood, 
were shaken by the sudden appearance of the white nose of 
the Master's chestnut on the other side of the bank. 

" I'd be obliged if there was less noise ! " said the Master's 
voice, with threatening in it. 

Mr. Hallinan's jaw dropped unaffectedly. 

" Merciful God ! " he murmured ; *' did he hear me, 
d'ye think ? " 

** Ah, no fear, man ! " whispered the Doctor, encouragingly. 
*' And if he did itself, maybe you'd get your cheque a bit 
quicker ! " 

In the silence that followed, a whim.pering whistle from a 
hound, invisible, yet near at hand, sent a thrill through the 
waiting riders. There followed the rustling rush of hounds 
through the undergrowth, as they gathered to enquire into 
the whimper. Then another whimper, merging into a 
squeal, and Cottingham's voice : 

** Hark to Dulcet ! Forrad to Dulcet ! " 

** Begad, they have him again," said Dr. Mangan, without 
enthusiasm. " I v/onder where is Tishy gone to ? I sup- 
pose they'll run these blasted hills now " 

The big grey horse, and his seventeen stone rider, moved 
off in the opposite direction to the tread of the hunt, which was 
slowly and steadily pushing upwards through the wood. 
Dr. Mangan was one of the select company of followers of 
hounds who know when they have had enough. 

A narrow, stony passage, more resembling a drain than a 
lane, ran round the wood ; the riders hustled along it, like 
a train in a cutting, too tightly packed for the most vindictive 
kicker to injure his neighbour, too hampered by impeding 
rocks to make more speed than can be accomplished by a 
jog. The drain ended at a V-shaped fissure between two 
slants of rock, and, by the time the last horse had clattered 
and scrambled up it, the hounds were away again, steering 
up, across heathery fields, enclosed by fences and stone 
walls of all sorts and sizes, for a great double-headed hill 
on the sky-hne, three or more miles away. 



54 MOUNT MUSIC 

" Carrigaholt as usual ! " said Major Dick, over his 
shoulder, to the Hon. Sec, young Kirby of Castle Ire. " If 
you get a chance, try and head him off the western rocks — 
and Bill ! Tell those infernal children of mine they're to 
keep with Charles and look out for bogs ! " 

His conscience as a parent thus appeased, the Master 
applied himself to the no small task of keepihg his hounds in 
sight, and of evading the equal difficulties presented by rocks 
and bog holes. The offspring in question, were now, with 
Larry, in comparative and undesired safety beneath the 
fluttering wing of Charles, and Bill Kirby, having faithfully 
delivered his message, found himself immediately adopted 
as an alternative protector, and repented him of his fidelity. 

The hounds stormed on through the hills, running hard 
across the frequent boggy tracts, more slowly, and with 
searchings, over the intervening humps of rock and furze. 
The fox was making a well-known point, and running a well- 
known hne, but the fences in their infinite variety, defied the 
staling force of custom, and the difficulties of the going were 
intensified by the pace. The hounds gained at length the 
ridge of the high country, and as they flitted along the sky- 
line, the riders, labouring among the rocks, skirting the bogs, 
pounding at the best pace they could raise over the intervals 
of heather and grass, felt that their hold on the h nt had 
become distinctly insecure. 

" * Christian dost thou see them ? ' " quoted Larry, kicking 
his heels into the bay cob's well-covered ribs without eftect, 
*' for I don't ! " 

*' They'll check at Carrigaholt," called back Bill Kirby ; 
" that'll be our chance " 

They were far up on the slope of the hills now ; the country 
swung in long, dipping lines, down to the Vale of the Broad- 
water, and spread, in great and generous curves, away to 
the far range of the Mweelin Mountains, that brooded, in 
colour a deep and sullen sapphire, on the horizon. The town 
of Cluhir, a little puff of smoke, cut in two by the wide river, 
lay below. The spires of the two churches rose above the 
smoke, one on either side of the bridge that spanned the 
river. The sound of bells, faintly rising from one of them 
summoned the faithful to the mid-day Mass in honour of 
St. Stephen. 



MOUNT MUSIC 55 

Larry, pushing Tommy along at a dogged canter, lifted his 
bowler hat as he heard the bells, and Christian and Judith 
looied at each other. The tradition of the Protestant, 
** No demonstrations ! " with its singular suspicion and dis- 
trus: of manifestations of reverence or poetry, had been early 
implanted in them, and Judith murmured to Christian : 
" Kow on earth does he remember ? " 

"I know I couldn't," admitted Christian ; yet some feel- 
in j that, though crushed, had survived the heavy feet of Lady 
Isabel's trusted manuals, stirred in her in accord with the 
faiat clash of the chapel bells, making her envy Larry his 
accredited salutation, making her feel something of the beauty, 
if not of holiness, of, at least, the recognition that there were 
loly things in the world. 

On the nearer head of Carrigaholt the check, predicted by 

Bill Kirby, came. A narrov/ and level plateau ran between 

he twin crests ; above it on both sides, rose successive 

shelves of cliff, with swathes of russet bracken muffling 

tneir fierce outline. Flung about on the shelves, looking like 

timbled piles of giant books in a neglected library, were 

inmense rectangular rocks ; one would say that only the grey 

aid knotted cords of the ivy that had crept over them, held 

tiem in their place upon those rugged shelves. At one end 

cf the level place the ground fell steeply to a wild stream, 

rhe Feorish, from whose farther bank another hill, but little 

less formidable than Carrigaholt, rose like an enemy tower, 

threatening its defences. The hounds swarmed like bees 

among the rocks, jumping or faUing from shelf to shelf, 

burrowing and thrusting through the bracken, their heads 

appearing suddenly in quite improbable places, with glowing 

eyes and glistening pink tongues, demanding from their 

huntsman the information that no one but themselves could 

give. 

It was a place in which not one, but a hundred places of 
safety presented themselves to a fox, but this good fox had 
despised them all, and, of all the hounds, it was Amazon, 
Christian's beloved foundling, who was first to recognise the 
fact. Far down, from the bottom of the gorge, she called 
to her fellows, and it was Christian, of all the riders, who 
first heard her voice. If Larry had had his great moment^ 
when the fox broke, it was Christian's turn now, when. 



56 MOUNT MUSIC 

Amazon fresh-found him. I suppose there are not very- 
many people who, as well as being perfectly happy, are 
conscious of their perfect happiness. This Httle girl was of 
that privileged company, as, in answer to her call, her father 
threw the pack over the edge of the plateau and cheered taem 
to Amazon. 

In two minutes, a frenzied chorus was filling the narjow 
gorge, the cry of the hounds, the hurrying reiterated no';es 
of the horn, the shouts of the Whips rating on straggle's, 
echoing and re-echoing from cliff to cliff. Before the riders 
had committed themselves to the descent, the leading hounds 
were straining up the opposite cliff face ; slithering, £nd 
slipping, the horses were hurried down a track that goats 
had made between rocks and bracken, and, at the base 
found themselves confronted with the problem of the river 
The River Styx could hardly look less attractive than did the 
Feorish, as it swirled, swollen and foaming, among its rocks 
its dark torrent plunging from steep to steep in roaring 
waterfalls. Some country men, high on the cHffs, howlec 
directions and the Mc.ster, his eye on his hounds struggling 
with the fierce stream, went on down the gorge until the howk 
changed their metre, thus indicating to the experienced tha; 
the moment had come to cross the river. The ford, such ?i 
it was, permitted some half dozen of the horses to cross it 
splashing and floundering, wobbling perilously from the round 
and slimy back of one sunken rock to another. 

Judith and the grey mare, following close on Bill Kirby's 
heels, got over neatly, and were away after him over the top 
of the hill before Christian's turn came. The ancient and 
skilled Harry addressed himself to the task with elderly 
caution, feeling his way with suspicion, creeping across 
with slow-poised feet, and was so deliberate over the effort, 
that Larry's cob, following too close on him, was checked at a 
critical moment. He struggled, sHpped, recovered, found 
himself still hindered by Harry, and, with a final stagger, 
lost footing altogether, and rolled over. 

Cottingham, subsequently recounting the incident, declared 
that he thought, he did, that the young genel'm was done for ; 
but '* that little Miss Christeen — she's a nummer she is ! — 
she off'n 'er 'oss before I fair sees what's 'appened, and she 
ketches the young chap by the 'ed, and pulls 'im clear ! 



MOUNT MUSIC 57 

Her did indeed ! A lill* gurl like what she is too ! Her's 
wuth more than ten big men ! " 

What the singular encomium, " a nummer" might mean 
was a fact known only to Cottingham, but it was incon- 
trovertibly Christian's eel-like swiftness of action that had 
saved Larry from a worse accident. Small and slender 
though she was, she was wiry, and she had the gift of being 
able instantly to concentrate every force of mind and body 
upon a desired point — a rare gift and a precious one. 

But when she and Larry, dripping and hatless, were hauled 
into safety by other helpers, less swift but more powerful, 
it was found that Larry had not come out of the Feorish 
unscathed. His left hand was hanging, helpless, with a 
broken wrist. 



CHAPTER IX 

The hunt swept on after the manner of hunts, full of 
sympathy, having, as to one man, contributed a silver cigarette 
case, with which another, a resourceful medical student, 
had improvised a splint^ but feeling, not without relief, 
that they could do nothing more ; feeling also, with 
depression, that the Lord only knew where the devils had run 
to by this time, but that that couldn't be helped ; with which 
philosophic reflection and manv valedictory shouts of com- 
miseration, the last of them had vanished over the hill. 

The unfortunate Charles restored to guardianship, now 
found himself with Miss Judith, lost; Miss Christian soaked to 
the skin, eight miles or more from her home ; Master Larry 
ditto, in much pain, no nearer to his, and unable to mount his 
horse, which latter would have to be led over a succession of 
fences to the nearest road ; (and no matter with what dis- 
tinction an elderly coachman can drive a pair of horses on 
a road, it is very far from being the same thing to get a pair 
of horses across a country). It was, therefore, a very gloomy 
party that set face for the nearest highway. The intricacies 
of procedure at each jump need not here be dealt with, but 
it may be said that a more thankful man than Charles, when he 
again felt the good macadam under his feet, is not often met 
with. He would at that moment have said that he could not 
have felt an intenser gratitude than suffused him as he saw 
his convoy safe off the hills ; but there he would have over- 
stated the case, since, scarcely five minutes after the road 
had been reached, an even more supreme thankfulness was 
his. Coming rapidly towards him, he beheld Dr. Mangan's 
outside car, and upon it was the large person of Dr. Mangan 
himself. 

•' WjII," said Charles that evening, to Mr. Evans, " if it 

58 



MOUNT MUSIC 59 

was the Angel Gabriel I seen frying down to me, I wouldn't 
be as glad as what I was when I seen the Big Doctor on the 
side-car ! " 

And Mr. Evans had caustically rejoined : " It'll be the 
funny day when you'll see wings on him ! " meaning Dr. 
Mangan, of whom he had a low opinion. 

Wings or no wings, no angel of mercy and succour was 
ever more welcome or more needed than was the Big 
Doctor at this moment. Larry, very white, shiverin:: with 
pain and cold, was lifted on to the car ; Christian was told to 
gallop away home as fast as she could, and Charles was 
directed to let Miss Coppinger know that her nephew would 
be put up for the night at the Doctor's own house at Cluhir. 

*' You can say to her that I met the Hunt, and one of them 
told me what happened," said the Big Doctor, *' and I knew 
then what to do." 

It might, indeed, habitually be said of Dr. Mangan that he 
knew very well what to do. There were, indeed, but two 
occasions on record when it might have seemed that he had 
not so known. The first of these was when he had abandoned 
an improving practice in Dublin to work as his father's 
partner in his native Cluhir, the second, when, preliminary 
to that return, he had married a lady, alleged, by inventive 
and disagreeable people, to have been his cook. The dis- 
agreeable people had also said disagreeable things as to the 
nature of the stress that had prompted the marriage. But 
it was now twenty years since the Mangans had been 
establi hed ai Number Six, The Mall, Cluhir; the Doctor 
had come in for his father's money as well as his practice, 
and was respected as " a warm man " ; the disagreeable 
ones had g own old, and people who are both old and dis- 
agreeable cannot expect to command a large audience. Mrs. 
Mangan, on the contrary, was neither the one nor the other, 
being, at this time, but little over forty, and as kindly, lazy, 
and handsome a creature as ever lived down spiteful gossip 
by good-nature. When *' The Dawkthor " (as she called 
him, with a drowsy drag on the first syllable) had galloped 
in at one o'cloc to command Barty's room to be got ready 
at oncc\ Mrs. M ngan was still in what she called '* ishable," 
and was s raying between her bedroom and the kitchen, 
pleasurably involved in the cares of both. 



(( 
<( 
(( 



6o MOUNT MUSIC 

** They say young Coppinger fell in the river, and he's 
broken his wrist," said the Doctor rapidly, stamping into 
his wife's room, bringing the wind of the hills with him. 

I'll bring h m here as soon as I can get hold of him." 

The creature ! " replied Mrs. M.mgan, sympathetically. 
Well, don't be waiting to pity him now ! " said her hus- 
band, stuffing bandages into his pocket, *' but hu^y and put 
hot jars into the bed — and clean sheets. Don't forget now, 
Annie ! " 

He lumbered in his long boots and spurs, down to the 
surgery, till issuing directions. 

" Tishy'U be back directly — she'll give you a hand — and 
Annie ! tell Hannah to have some hot soup ready. Now, 
hurry, for God's sake ! " 

The front door into the Mall, Cluhir's most fashionable 
quarter, bang d. 

" Well, well 1 " said Mrs. Mangan, still sympathetic, while 
she removed the curling-pins from her bison fringe ; '* wasn't 
it the will of God that I had a headache this morning and 
couldn't go to Mass ! I'll have something to say to Father 
Greer now if he draws it up to me that I was backward in 
my duty ! " 

M ch fortified by this reflection, Mrs. Manojan hurriedly 
proceeded with her toilette, squallin^i meanwhile to her hench- 
woman in the kitchen a summary of the Doctor's orders. 
She had no more than achieved what she called her " Sunday 
dress," a complimentary effort to be equally divided between 
Saint Stephen and young Mr. Coppinger, when the back-door 
into the yard from the house slammed, and her daughter's 
voice announced her return. 

** Come up, Tishy, till I talk to you \ " shouted Mrs. 
Mangan, slinging a long gold watch-chain over her head 
and festooning it upon her ample bosom : " Did you meet 
Pappy ? " she continued, as her daughter's steps drew near. 

" I did to be sure," returned Miss Letitia, coming into her 
mother's room and flinging herself into an armchair, *' when 
I was crossing the bridge it was. He roared to me to hurry 
you and Hannah. Holy Mary Joseph ! How stiff I am ! 
That old horn on the saddle has the right leg cut off me ! " 

** Well, never mind your legs now," replied Mrs. Mangan, 
peremptorily, " what I want to know is what sort is this 



MOUNT MUSIC 6i 

young man that Pappy's bringing in on top of us ? In God's 
name, why couldn't he be let go home to his own ? " 

*' ' Young man * is it !" retorted Tishy ; ** he's nothing 
but a boy at school, and a cross boy too ! Such beating: of 
his pony as he had when he wouldn't jump for him ! Didn't 
I try and make poor Zoe go before him, and th' eye he cast 
at her ! I thought he'd beat me, too ! " 

" Oh, and is a boy all he is then ? " said Mrs. Mangan, with 
rehef in her voice : " you'd think by the work your father 
had 'twas the Lord Leftenant was in it ! Run away now, 
Tishy, like a good girl, and get those clothes off you, nd help 
Hannah with Barty's room. Boy or man or whatever he is, 
he must have a bed unJ'er him ! " 

It was a very deplorable boy who presently arrived at No. 
6, The Mall, Cluhir, and was practically ifted off the car by 
the Big Doctor. Francis Alaysius Mangan had many aspects 
of character of an undesirable kind, but they were linked 
with one virtue, the Irish gift, of a good-natured heart. 
With his enormous thick hands, that made Larry think of 
a tiger's paws, he undressed the boy as cleverly and gently 
as he had set the b:oken bones of his wrist. Mrs. Margan 
and Hannah had not failed ; the soup and the jars were, 
as the latter authority had pronounced, ** as hot as love " 
simihrly impassioned was the ardour of the whisky-punch, 
with which the pr ce:ding5 had opened. Combined with a 
subsequent sleeping draught, it conferred the boon of sleep, 
and for some hours, rt all events, Larry fo got his recently- 
acquired knowledge of what pain was. But not for many 
hours. In the long darkness c f the winter morning he lay 
with a fast-mounting temperature, wh'ie he mide the dis- 
covery, common to all in his case, t- at upon the particular 
bone that has been broken, the entire existence pivots. And, 
in addition to the broken bone, by the time that Mi y.:. Frederica 
had driven in from Ccppinger's Court, there was b t little 
doubt that what Dr. Mangan called, lightly, " a touch of 
pneumonia," would keep young Mr. Coppinger in Barty's 
room for a time unspecified. 

Miss Frederica drove home again in a seriously perturbed 
frame of mind, and with indignation against the decrees of 
Providence hot within her. 

*' I wired for a nurse for him ! " she said to Lady Isabel, 



62 MOUNT MUSIC 

" I could not plant myself upon them ! It's all most 
uncomfortable and unavoidable. Of course they've been 
extremely kind " 

At the back of Miss Coppinger's mind was the wish, that 
she trampled on whenever it stirred, that the Mangans had 
been less nexceptionally kind and Good Samaritan-like. 
*' Such an obligation ! " she groaned ; " they've turned 
their own son out of the house to make room for Larry ! 
But oh, my dear Isabel, if you could imagine what the house 
is like ! The untidiness ! The dirt ! Of course they're 
unspeakably kind, and Dr. Mangan is certainly very clever, 
and has managed Larry wonderfully," went on Frederica, 
repenting her of her evil speaking, " and I must say I can't 

help liking Mrs, Mangan, but the girl ! " Miss Cop- 

pinger shut her mouth so tightly that her lips became thin, 
white lines. " Keep the door of your lips " was a text which 
she had in her youth illuminated for herself. She often found 
that nothing save a sudden and violent slam would keep 
that door shut, and, to do her justice, the slams, when the 
conversation turned on the Mangan household, were both 
frequent and violent. 

This was later, when Larry was getting better, and when his 
aunt had be^un to find the daily drive to Cluhir something of 
a strain. It was not until he was practically convalescent 
that he was permitted to receive other visitors. Even the 
daughter of the house, and that unknown son, into whose 
bedroom he had been thrust, were, for him, beneath the 
surface, and their presence only inferential. Barty was 
domiciled at a friend's, and Miss Tishy held aloof, the 
hushed voices, and general restraint imposed by illness, 
being not at all to her taste. Lady Isabel came once, with 
his aunt, and Christian crept shyly in behind them. Christian 
was wont to be silent in the presen jc of her elders. That 
great and admirable maxim, once y/idely instilled into the 
young, whose purport is that children should seldom be seen 
and never heard, had early been accepted by Chri tian, 
without resentment, even, as she grew older, with g atitude. 
Having diffidently taken Larry's listless and pallid paw, she 
had s ipped into the background, and waited silently, while 
her eager brain absorbed and stored every detail for future 
meditation. Long after Larry had hghtly forgotten all save 



MOUNT MUSIC 63 

the large facts of his illness and incarceration, Christian 
could describe the Pope, whose highly-coloued presentment 
beatified (rather than beautified) the wall over Larry's bed, 
and could imitate, with the accuracy of a phonograph, the 
voice of Mrs. Mangin, as she issued her opinions on the ttate 
of the weather to her distinguished visitors. 



CHAPTER X 

The '* touch of pneumonia," prophesied by Dr. Mangan, 
had proved to be a sufficiently emphatic one. Larry's recovery 
was slow, and during his languid convalescence, he found 
himself becoming sincerely attached to the Big Doctor and 
Mrs. Mangan, and their high place in his affections was shared 
by the nurse provided by Miss Coppinger. The bond of a 
common faith was one that, at this stage of his development, 
had but little appeal for Larry, but he was, at all events, 
spared any possibility of suffering from the feelings of sub- 
friction, if not of antagonism, that inevitably stirred in his 
aunt's breast, if she found herself brought into relation closer 
than that of emplc3^er and employed with those of the older 
creed. 

His sense of beauty, now beginning to acquire conscious- 
ness, and sorely afflicted by the decorative scheme that had 
been adopted in Barty's bedroom, found solace in the faces 
of these two women. Even the lazy consideration of the 
contrast between their types, was a comfort to Larry, and dis- 
tracted his mind from the wall-paper (which suggested the 
contents of Dr. Mangan's surgery, rhubarb, and mustard- 
leaves predominating), and from Barty's taste in art, which in 
its sacred and profane aspects was alike deplorable. 

Nurse Brennan, slight and fair, with the clearest of blue 
eyes, and a Dresden china complexion — Larry was already 
artist enough to study and adore the shadow of her white 
coif, with its subtle, reflected lights, on her pink, rose-leaf 
cheek — and Mrs. Mangan, just a little over-blown, but 
heavily, darkly handsome, with deep-lidded shadowy eyes, 
and — as Master Coppinger pleased himself by discovering — 
a slight suggestion of a luxurious Chesterfield sofa, upholstered 
in rich cream velvet. When he was getting better, and the 

64 



MOUNT MUSIC 65 

rigours of the sick room were relaxing, these two provided 
him with interest and entertainment of which they were 
dehghtfully unaware. 

" Well, and what will I give him for his dinner to-day, 
Norrse ? " — (impossible to persuade the English alphabet 
to disclose Mrs. Mangan's pronunciation of this word) — 
his hostess would say, drifting largely into Larry's room 
and seating herself on the side of his bed. 

" Don't be making an invahd of him at all, Mrs. Mangan ! " 
Nurse Brennan would rejoin briskly ; ''I'm just telling him 
I'd be sorry to get a thump from that old wrist of his, he and 
the Doctor think so much about ! And he hasn't as much as 
a point of temperature those three days ! " 

" Oh, I say. Nurse ! " Larry would protest, " then why 
won't you let me get up ? " 

" Be quite now "—(in Ireland the ** e " in " quiet " is 
not infrequently thus transposed) — " and don't be bothering 
me, like a good child ! " Nurse would reply, with a sidelong 
flash of her charming eyes, a recognition of Larry's age and 
sex that atoned for the opprobrious epithet. 

" Would he like a nice bit of fish now ? I'm going down 
the town, and I might meet one of the women in from Broad- 
haven." Thus Mrs. Mangan, coaxingly. 

" Oh, Mrs. Mangan, please don't bother ! " says Larry. 
" Ah, no bother at all ! Sure I was going down anyway to 
the chapel to get a sup of holy water. I declare the house is 
bone dry ! Not a drop in it ! " - 

After dreary winter mornings spent in reading, by the light 
of a mis-placed window, or age-long afternoons, drowsed 
through in that torpor, mental as well as physical, that over- 
whelms the victim of a prolonged sojourn in bed, Larry used 
to find himself looking forward to the conversations between 
Nurse Brennan and Mrs. Mangan that arose at tea-time, and 
followed, stimulated by the early darkness of January, in the 
fireUght ; the southern voices rising and faUing like the 
flickering flames, becoming soon self-engrossed, and forget- 
ful of the silent listener in the bed. Sometimes sleep would 
lap him in slow, stealthy peace, and the voices would die 
away, or come intermittently, as the sound of a band marching 
throush a town fades and recurs at the turn of a street. 
But without being aware of it, he was absorbing knowledge, 

£ 



66 MOUNT MUSIC 

learning a new point of view, breathing a new atmosphere 
that was to influence him more deeply than he could have any 
conception was possible. 

One evening the talk fell on the congenial topic of illness, 
doctors and patients, nurses and nuns, all spinning in 
the many-coloured whirlpool of talk, now one and now another 
cresting the changing wave. The fact that Larry was of 
their own religion, counterbalanced his belonging to an alien 
class, and if their consciences sometimes hinted at a lack of 
discretion, they quieted them with the assurance that *' the 
poor child was asleep ! " 

*' Ah, the nuns are wonderful ! " said Mrs. Mangan, 
languishingly. " Look how lovely they have the Workhouse 
Infirmary ! I was taking some flowers to Reverend Mother, 
and she was telling me what a beautiful death old Catherine 
Macsweeny made. Reverend Mother rained tears when she 
told me." 

Nurse Brennan sniffed. 

** Reverend Mother's a sweet woman, and the nuns are 
very attentive when a person'd be dying, but indeed Mrs. 
Mangan, if you ask me, I'd say ' twas the only time they 
were much use to their patients ! Up at that infirmary what 
have patients at night to look after them only an old inmate, 
and she ' wanting ' maybe ! " 

Larry began to giggle, and was moved to try his wit. 

" Nurse ! What's the difference between a stale mate and 
an old inmate } And what does it want ? " 

*' It wants the very same as yourself — brains ! " returned 
Nurse, swiftly. " Now may be ! " She wagged her head at 
him triumphantly, turning aside to hide the smile of victory, 
and Larry thought how lovely was her profile, as the firelight 
etched it in incandescent lines on the smoky background. 

" Well, indeed, the Poor have a deal to put up with ! '* 
said Mrs. Mangan, lazily, leaning back in her basket-chair, 
with her big grey cat purring like an aeroplane engine on her 
knee. " The Doctor says no one but himself knows the way 
he's dragged all over the country, patching up after some of 
them young fellows that get dispensaries before they're fit 
to doctor the cat ! " 

The reformer, that underlay the artist in Larry, awoke. 

*' But J Mrs. Mangan," he said, hotly, sitting up in bed, 



MOUNT MUSIC 67 

and glaring into the gloom at Mrs. Mangan's half-seen face, 
** why do they give dispensaries to chaps that can't doctor a 
cat ? " 

'' Because their fathers can E,«pend four or five hundred 
pounds to buy votes ! " returned Mrs. Mangan, laughing at 
him. " Is that news to you ? Lie down child, and dcn't 
be looking at me like th?.t ! / haven't a vote to sell ! " 

Larry subsided with vague splutterings. Nurse came to 
his bedside and smoothed the clothes. 

*' Listen to me now," she said impressively, " and /'// 
tell you something to make you angry, if you like ! " 

She leaned against the foot of the bed, with her hsnds in 
the pockets of her apron, looking down at him. " I was in 
charge of th' infirmary at Mellifont one time, and late one 
evening a young farm-boy was brought in to me with a dis- 
located foot and a ' Pott's Fracture ' " 

" In the name o' God, what's that ? " enquired Mrs. 
Mangan. 

" Fracture of the fibula, but the case I'm speaking of had 
the two bones broken at the ankle," explained Nurse Brennan, 
in her most professional manner ; " sure I thought anyone'd 
know that ! And I can tell you," she leaned towards Larry, 
striking the palm of her left hand with her little clenched 
right fist, as if to hammer the words into him, " I can assure 
you, that as bad as you thought you were, you don't know 
what pain is beside what that boy suffered ! Well, I sent 
for the doctor — a young brat of a fella that hadn't but just 
left college. ' He'll want an anaesthetic,' says he, ' I'll send 

down for Doctor ' (I'll not tell you his name — Smith, 

I'll call him !) * Do you give him some brandy, nurse,' 
says he, ' Dr. Smith'll be here soon.' Sure enough he was, 
and glad I was to see him, for the patient was suffering greatly, 
and the leg swelling every minyute. It was a long ward he 
was in, and no one at all in it but himself. At the far end there 
was a table and a lamp, and down at the table me gentlemen 
sat, and commenced to talk." 

Nurse Brennan paused, and Mrs. Mangan gave the fire 
a well-directed poke, that set the flames branching upwards. 
The tale was resumed, in those cool and equable tones that 
express a more perfected indignation than any heat or haste 
could convey. 






68 MOUNT MUSIC 

" Well, that was nine o'clock, and they talked ther^ for 
two hours, and I giving the patient brandy, and expecting 
every minyute he'd collapse. And what do you suppose they 
were talking about ? Fighting they were ! Disputing which 
of them would perform the operation, and which would 
administer the chloroform ! " 

Mrs. Mangan laughed lightly, and said : "I wouldn't at 
all doubt it ! " 

Impossible ! " exclaimed Larry. 

Not a bit impossible ! " said Nurse Brennan, " and how 
d'ye think they settled it in the end ? They arranged one of 
them would begin th' operation and go on for five minutes, 
and then he should stop and give the anaesthetic, and the other 
would go on with the leg ! Oh, it's the case, I assure you ! 
It was twelve o'clock at night before they were done ! " 

She paused, laughing a little at the hot questions with which 
Larry assailed her, but he could see the unshed tears gleaming 
in her eyes. " I was summoned to a private case next day ; 
I don't know what happened to the unfortunate poor creature 
of a patient." 

" A stiff leg he has, I'll be bound ! " said Mrs. Mangan. 

Larry lay silent. He saw it all. The long, dark ward, the 
white angel figure (he thought, romantically) bending over 
the tortured creature on the bed, and, far away, the pool of 
yellow light and' in it those two — he sought in vain for adjec- 
tives to express what he thought of Dr. I'll-not-tell-you-his- 
name, and his young colleague. 



CHAPTER XI 

In the years that followed, " Larry's cads " came to be, for 
the young Talbot-Lowrys, a convenient designation for the 
friends into whose bosom Providence had seen fit to fling 
their cousin. But Larry never either approved or accepted 
it. He was entirely pleased with his new friends, and 
especially with that son of the house whose position he had 
usurped, Mr. Bartholomew Mangan. 

Barty was a lengthy, languid, gentle youth, of nearly 
nineteen, darkly, pallidly handsome, sweet natured, and 
slovenly, like his mother, and, unlike her, poetical, idealistic, 
unpractical, shy, and self-conscious. He was, at this period, 
working in the office of one of the two solicitors, who, with the 
aid of a branch of a bank, a Petty Sessions Court, and the 
imposing, plate-glass bow-windows of Hallinan's hotel, 
enabled Cluhir to convince itself of its status as a town. 
Further proof of the civic importance of Cluhir was found 
in the existence of a debating club of very advanced political 
views among its young men, of which Barty Mangan was 
secretary. Its membership, if small, was select, since its 
Republican principles did not compel it to admit to its 
privileges shop-assistants, or artisans, while they automatically 
excluded members of the class that were usually referred to 
in the club discussions as " Carrion Crows," or if the arator's 
mood was mild, " the garrison." In Ireland the attitude of 
mind that is termed, alternatively. Disloyalty or Patriotism, 
is largely a matter of class, and Barty Mangan's introduction 
of Master St. Lawrence Coppinger, as an honorary member of 
the club, partook of the nature of a shock to those of the faith- 
ful who were present at his first appearance in the club 
room, a severely plain apartment, that offered no impediment 
in the matter of luxury to high thinking. But the faithful of 

69 



70 MOUNT MUSIC 

the " Sons of Emmet " Club had nothing to fear from this 
half-fledged young Carrion Crow. The English school 
to which Larry had been sent had dulled the fire lit by the 
poems of The Spirit of the Nation, but it had not extin- 
guished it. It had flickered for a time, during which Hunting 
had superseded Patriotism, and Mr. Jorrocks had reigned 
alone ; but the oratory of the Sons of Emmet, to which 
Larry was now privileged to listen, had had the effect of 
restoring to life and vigour the long-neglected, half-forgotten 
tenets, of the Companionage of Finn. Larry's store of 
enthusiasm was quite equal to supplying motive power for 
running two engines ; hunting still held its own, and after a 
club debate in which he had taken an energetic part, even the 
most exclusive of the Sons of Emmet admitted that Barty's 
importation was worthy of the privilege that had been ex- 
tended to him. 

A spell of cold weather had compelled a postponement of 
Larry's return to his own home. When snow and frost visit a 
country unused to their attentions, they are treated with a 
respect that they do not receive elsewhere. The Doctor's 
orders were strict, and Larry spent the last days of his stay 
at No. 6, The Mall, seated in semi-invalid state by the dining- 
room fire, occupied, mainly, in the consumption of literature 
provided by his new friend, Mr. Barty Mangan, that con- 
sisted of poems, books, and pamphlets of precisely that shade 
of politics of which his family most thoroughly disapproved, 
and absorbing what would be, in their opinion, the most 
entirely poisonous points of view. 

The Big Doctor, smoking a comfortable evening pipe over 
the fire, would join in the discussions between his son and 
his visitor, offering just as much opposition to Larry's revolu- 
tionary flights as was stimulating, and flattered his sense of 
youth and daring. 

" We mustn't send him back to his auntie too much of a 
rebel altogether ! " The Doctor would say, grinning at the 
enthusiast with his pipe wedged under a tooth ; " isn't it 
good enough for you to be a poor decent old Nationalist 
like myself ? I'm sure there's no one would disapprove of 
me, is there, Annie ? " 

" Don't be too sure of that at all ! " Mrs. Mangan would 
reply coquettishly, trying to look as if she did not agree with 



MOUNT MUSIC 71 

him ; '* wait till his auntie hears the notions Larry's taking up 
with, and she'll think we're all the worst in the world ! And 
the Major ! The Major'll go cracked-mad ! " 

** It doesn't matter where he goes ! " says Larry, defiantly, 
" IVe had these * notions,' as you call them, for ages and 
ages ! " 

** Ah, God help you, child! " Mrs. Mangan would probably 
say, " keep quite now, till I get you a glass of hot milk ! " 

Politics did not form the only point of contact that had 
been established between Larry and the Mangan household. 
Since his promotion to comparative convalescence, Tishy, 
daughter of the house, had entered more actively into his 
scheme of life, and the point of entrance was music. Some 
divergence in view as to music is more easily condoned, on 
both s^'des, than in the other realms of the spirit. It matters 
not from how far countries the travellers may come, or how 
widely sundered may be their ideals, there are rest-houses 
at which they can draw rein and find agreement. One of 
these, possibly the greatest of them, is folk song. Ireland, 
whose head is ever turned over her shoulder, looking to the 
past, has, in her folk song, at least, reason and justification 
for her preoccupation with what has been in her music, 
rather than with what is, or is to come. It is difficult to re- 
concile the eternal beauty of traditional Irish melody with the 
lack of musical interest and feeling that distinguishes the 
mass of modern Irish life. But, here and there, a string of 
the harp that has hung, mute, on Tara's walls for so many 
centuries, utters a sigh of sweet sound, and at Number 6, 
The Mall, Cluhir, the soul of music had still some power 
of inspiration. 

This is, perhaps, a rather elaborate method of intimating 
that Dr. Mangan played the violin, moderately as to technique, 
but soundly as to intonation, and that he and his family 
sang, as a quartet, not only at charity concerts, but also for 
their own pleasure, in their own home. Music, more than 
the other arts, demands sympathy, and an audience. In 
Larry, the Mangan Quartet recognised that both require- 
ments were supplied, together with a glorifying enthusiasm 
of appreciation — though this they scarcely recognised — that 
gilded for him their achievements, as the firelight had edged 
the profile of Nurse Brennan with pure gold. Larry, it has 



72 MOUNT MUSIC 

already been said, had the artistic temperament ; he had 
also a generous heart, and he was of an age when apprecia- 
tion is spontaneous, and criticism is either unborn, or is only 
an^echo of some maturer mind. Therefore, as he lay on the 
Mangan blue rep-covered drawing-room sofa, with a satin 
cushion adorned with Tishy's conception of roses, in water- 
colour, under his head, while pretty Nurse Brennan gently 
massaged his wrist, and the Mangan Quartet warbled : 
" O, believe me if all those endearing young charms," 
or '* When thro' life unblest we rove," Larry passed into 
ecstasy, that, had he been one degree less of a schoolboy, 
might have been exhaled in tears ; even as the sun draws 
water from the sea, in a mist of glory, and returns it to the 
world again in rain. 

Tishy was accompanist, and sang alto ; her mother, who 
knew nothing of notation, and sang by ear, sang treble ; 
Barty had a supple and pleasing tenor, and the Doctor pos- 
sessed a solemn bass, deep and dark as a thundercloud, 
yet mellow as the hum of a hive of honey-bees on a summer 
morning ; a rare voice and a beautiful one, that had its 
counterpart in the contralto that already, at sixteen and a 
half, had given Tishy power and distinction among her 
fellows. 

At this time, Miss Letitia Mangan's views, and those of 
ker parents, as to her future, musical or otherwise, were 
entirely divergent. Hers held as central figure a certain 
medical student, with an incipient red moustache, and a 
command of boxes of chocolate that was bewildering to those 
acquainted with his income. Quite other were Dr. Mangan's 
intentions with regard to his daughter, but he was satisfied 
to keep them out of sight ; he was aware that, in all solid 
buildings, the deeper and farther out of sight the foundation, 
the more assured is the result. 

It is possible that the idea of a farewell entertainment in 
Larry's honour emanated from the Big Doctor ; if so, he 
had erased his tracks very thoroughly, and it was regarded 
by Mrs. Mangan's intimates as a final brandishing of her 
trophy before she was forced to relinquish it. Larry was 
indisputably a trophy, and Heaven was considered to have 
exercised a very undue discrimination in Mrs. Mangan's 
favour when it threw him into her house and her hands. 



MOUNT MUSIC 73 

It was a very select party, only a score or so of boys and girls, 
with the elders appertaining to them. Nurse Brennan had 
departed, taking with her Larry's young affections, and a gift, 
costly and superfluous, of a silver-mounted mirror, which was 
accompanied by some chaste lines, expressive of Master 
Coppinger's desire to share its privileges, whose composition 
had kept him happy throughout a long, wet afternoon. 

The party, having opened with lemonade, tea and innumer- 
able cakes, moved on through *' a little music," (contributed 
exclusively by the Mangan Quartet) to games. Larry, 
afflicted by the discovery that he had, during his illness, 
outgrown his evening clothes, found himself fated to do 
conspicuous things in the centre of a space, cleared as for a 
prize-fight, in the Mangan drawing-room. Problems in 
connection with a ship that came from China. Exhausting 
eflPorts in guessing absurdities, that usually necessitated 
withdrawal to the landing outside the door with a giggling 
schoolgirl, and collaboration with her in a code of com- 
plicated signals. And, blackest feature of all, mistakes in 
any of these arduous matters entailed '' forfeits," and the 
process entitled " paying the forfeits," meant a concen- 
tration of attention upon a young gentleman, conscious to 
agony of the fact that his trousers left his ankle-bones 
unshielded from the public gaze. 

It was sufficiently distressing to lie at full length on the 
carpet, and declare oneself to be the length of a looby, and the 
breadth of a booby, but what was that as compared with sitting, 
blindfolded, on a chair, and guessing, among many kisses, 
which had been bestowed by " the girl he loved best ? " 
As if he loved any of them ! These pert and blowsy school- 
girls, with hideous voices, and arrogant curls, or crimped 
lion-manes of aggressive hair ! He, with *' his heart set all 
upon a snowy coif ! " (as he chose to wrest Mr. Yeats' line to 
his own purposes). 

It was singular in how many of these exercises, of which 
the greater number included kissing, he found himself involved 
with Tishy Mangan. Tishy was in a bad temper. The 
red-headed medical student had not been honoured with an 
invitation. Dr. Mangan had struck his name from the 
list of guests saying that they had enough without him, and 
Tishy knew her father too well to protest. Dr. Mangan 



74 MOUNT MUSIC 

was in the habit of saying that he always left all household 
affairs *' in the hands of the ladies." He did not add, as he 
might have done, that these hands lay within his, and that 
their owners had long since realised that it was advisable 
to respond to any indication of pressure. His daughter, 
however, while she submitted to the inevitable, saw no reason 
why she should deny herself the solace of sulking, nor of 
avenging herself of his tyranny on *' his fine pet," as she, 
in high indignation, described Larry to herself. Master 
Coppinger might be a man of property and the owner of 
Coppinger's Court, yes, or Dublin Castle, for all she cared f 
Pappy might say what he liked, but she wouldn't be bothered 
with a boy like that ! And there was Ned Cloherty — (this 
was the medical student) — that she had as good as asked to 
come — and what could she say to him now, she wondered } 
So Tishy sulked, and resented the Hidden Hand, that so 
inevitably linked her with the owner of Coppinger's Court,, 
as much as did that man of property himself. 

The evening wore on ; with romping, with screaming, 
with enormous consumption of various foods, and with an 
ever-heightening temperature, that was specially noticeable 
among those seniors who had not disdained the brew of 
punch that had coincided with the announcement of midnight, 
made, with maddening deliberation, by Mrs. Mangan's 
cuckoo-clock. The usual delirium of cracker-head-dresses 
had befallen the company. Larr}% decorated with a dunce's 
cap, placed upon his yellow head by a jovial matron, found 
himself fated, by a final effort of penalising fancy on the 
part of another matron, to select ** a young lady," to conduct 
her to the topmost step of the staircase, and there, on his 
knees, to kiss either her shoe-buckle or her lips ; " which- 
ever he likes best ! " decreed the matron, archly. 

It is strange how the reserves and reticences of childhood, 
the things that offend, the things that bring agony, are for- 
gotten by so many of those who have left childhood behind. 
In extenuation of this lively and kindly lady, it may be said 
that the manners and customs of her early youth were not 
those to which Larry was habituated. Yet, one might have 
thought that a glance at Larry's face would have sufficed 
to induce Rhadamanthus himself to remit the penalty. Not 
so Mrs. Whelply, the arbitrator. 



MOUNT MUSIC 75 

** Oh, look at the pout on him ! What a naughty boy ! 
If you don't take care, I'll put a worse task on you ! " 

Larry, oblivious of the dunce's cap, feeling himself in the 
grip of a social machine that was too strong for him, looked 
round upon the company. Hot, pink faces, shining eyes and 
teeth, Moenad hair, on all sides. Then he caught sight of 
Tishy's eyes, scornful and amused, regarding him as he 
stood irresolute, and his spirit responded to the spur 
of contempt. He crossed the open space of floor to 
where she was seated on the blue rep sofa, took off the 
dunce's cap with a flourish, and, with a low bow, offered her 
his arm. 

A chorus of approval, weighted by the Big Doctor's big 
laugh, greeted the action. Tishy, cornered, accepted the 
arm, the door was swung open for them, and ostentatiously 
slammed behind them. 

Larry, silent, and very angry, mounted the stairs quickly, 
and Tishy perforce, her hand gripped by his elbow, followed 
him. At the highest step but one, Larry stood aside, and 
Tishy ascended, and turning, faced him from the top. They 
looked at each other for a moment in silence. Both were 
furiously angry, resenting the compulsion that had forced 
them into an absurd position. 

Then Tishy said insolently : " Well ! Which will you 
have ? My shoe-buckle or my lips } Take your choice ! " 

She poked her foot out over the edge of the step confidently. 

A spark shot from Larry's angry heart to his blue eyes. 
He looked up at Tishy, and something suddenly masterful 
awoke in him. Confound her ! He wouldn't have her 
laughing at him ! 

** I'll have your lips, please ! " he said, mounting to the 
step beside her. 

With schoolboy roughness he flung his arm round her 
shoulders. She was a little taller than he, but she did not 
withdraw herself ; she was curiously aware that her point of 
view was changing. She looked for an instant in his eyes, 
and then she laid her lips on his. 

Larry found, with surprise, that they returned the pressure 
of his own as he kissed her. The spark that had been in 
his eyes seemed to have flown to his lips, and met another 
spark in hers. 



76 MOUNT MUSIC 

There was a moment of silence. Larry found himself a 
little out of breath, and somehow bewildered. There was 
more in it than he thought. He didn't quite know what to 
do next. 

" Thank you very much," he said, stiffly, and offered his 
arm. 

In silence they walked down the stairs again. The piano 
had begun, and *' Sir Roger de Coverly " was being thundered 
forth. At the door they met the Doctor. Larry released 
Tishy's arm. 

" If you don't mind," he said to the Doctor, " I think I'll 
go up to bed. I'm tired." 

After he had got to his room he shook himself, much as a 
dog renews its vitality by shaking its ears. Then he poured 
some water into the basin and washed his hot face, scrubbing 
his lips with the sponge. 

Yet, to his infinite annoyance, he seemed still to feel the 
pressure of Tishy's warm mouth on his. 



CHAPTER XII 

It is, or should be, superfluous to say that Miss Frederica 
Coppinger viewed with disfavour, that was the more poignant 
for its helplessness, Larry's adoption and assimilation by the 
Mangan family. 

** Disastrous ! " she said in a tragic voice, to the Rector of 
Knockceoil parish. "If he were a Protestant it wouldn't 
matter so much ; but, as things are, for him to be 
thrown among these second-rate, NationaHstic, Roman 
Cathohcs ! " 

The intensity of Miss Coppinger's emotions silenced him. 
She had indeed beaten her biggest drum, and she knew it. 

The Rector, the Reverend Charles Fetherston, nodded his 
head with solemnity, and made a conscientious effort to re- 
member what she was speaking of. He was not much in 
the habit of attending to what was said to him, finding his 
own thoughts more interesting than those of his parishioners. 
The parishioners, being aware of this peculiarity, put it down, 
very naturally, to eccentricity for which he was rather to be 
pitied than condemned, and his popularity was in no way 
abated by it. Mr. Fetherston was unmarried, in age about 
sixty ; tall, stout, red-faced, of good family, a noted wood- 
cock shot and salmon fisher, a carpenter, and an incessant 
pipe-smoker. These being his leading gifts, it will probably, 
and with accuracy, be surmised by persons conversant with 
the Irish Church, that he was a survival of its earliest days, 
when it was still an avocation suitable for gentlemen, and one 
in which they could indulge without any taint of professional- 
ism being laid to their charge. He was immensely respected 
and admired by the poor people of the parish (none of whom 
were included in his small and well-to-do congregation), 
the fact that he was what is known as " old stock," giving him 
a prestige among the poorer Roman Catholics, that they would 

77 



78 MOUNT MUSIC 

have denied to St. Peter. He shared with Major Talbot- 
Lowry the position of consultant in feuds, and relieving 
officer in distress, and, being rich, Hberal, easily bored, and 
not particularly sympathetic to affliction, he was accustomed 
to stanch the flow of tears and talk alike, with a form of solace 
that rarely failed to meet the case, and was always acceptable. 
With Miss Coppinger, he felt, regretfully, that five shillings 
could in no way be brought to bear upon her problem, and 
with an effort he withdrew his mind from a new hinge that 
he thought of fitting to a garden-gate, and appHed it to Larry. 

" How old is the boy now ? Sixteen last October ? He 
doesn't look as much — you'll see he'll outgrow all that non- 
sense of Nationalism ! Send him to Oxford as soon as you 
can. He'll soon get hold of some other tomfoolery there, 
and forget this. Seven devils worse than the first, in fact I " 

The Reverend Charles laughed, wheezily, and began, 
automatically, to fill a pipe, an indication of a change of mental 
outlook. 

" Worse ? " cried Miss Frederica, ardently ; " no indeed, 
Mr. Fetherston ! Better ! Far better ! Anything is pre- 
ferable to this — this Second-rate Sedition ! " 

When Frederica perorated, and this remark partook of the 
nature of peroration, it was as though she took a header into 
deep water. By the time she had again risen to the surface 
of her emotions, the Reverend Charles Fetherston had 
returned to the hinge of the garden-gate, and Miss Cop- 
pinger, knowing her man, made no attempt to recall him. 
She had a very special regard for her rector, of a complex 
sort that is not quite easy to define. There was veneration 
in it, the veneration that was inculcated in her youth for the 
clergy ; there was the compassion that many capable and self- 
confident women bestow upon any man to whom Providence 
has denied a feminine protector ; there was a regretful 
pity for his shortcomings — (but half-acknowledged, even to 
herself) — as a Minister of the Word, counterbalanced by 
respect for his worldly wisdom ; above all, there was the deep, 
peculiar interest that was excited in her by any clergyman, 
merely in virtue of his office, a person whose trade it was to 
occupy himself with the art and practice of religion, which 
was a subject that had, quite apart from its spiritual side, the 
same appeal for her that the art and practice of the theatre 



MOUNT MUSIC 79 

has for many others. (It is hard to imagine any simile that 
would have shocked Frederica more than this ; in all her 
years of strenuous, straightforward life, she had never, as 
she would have said, set foot in a theatre.) 

Frederica had been born at Coppinger's Court, and she 
had passed her childhood there, but her youth had been spent 
in Dublin, in the hot heart of a parish devoted to good works, 
and to a pastor whose power and authority was in no degree 
less absolute than that of any of the " Romish priests " whom 
he so heartily denounced. She was brought up in that school 
of Irish Low Church Protestantism that makes more severe 
demands upon submission and credulity than any other, and 
yet more fiercely arraigns other creeds on those special counts. 
It is quite arguable that Irish people, like the Israelites who 
so ardently desired a king, enjoy and thrive under religious 
oppression, and it is beyond dispute that among the oppressed, 
of both the rival creeds, are saints whose saintliness has 
gained force from the systems to which they have given their 
allegiance. To Frederica the practice of her cult both 
inwardly in her heart, and outwardly in the work of St. 
Matthew's Parish, was the mainspring of her existence. 
It was also her pastime. She would analyse a sermon, 
as Dick Lowry would discuss a run, and with the same eager 
enjoyment. She assented with enthusiasm to the Doctrine 
of Eternal Damnation, and a gentler-hearted creature than she 
never lived. She would have gone to the stake for the 
Verbal Inspiration of the Bible ; she was as convinced that 
the task of Creation was completed in a week, as she was that 
she paid the Coppinger's Court workmen for six days' work 
every Saturday evening. In short, the good Frederica was 
a survival of an earlier and more earnest period, and her 
religious beliefs were only comparable, in their sincerity and 
simplicity, with those of the Roman Catholic poor people, 
whose spiritual prospects were to her no less black (theoretically) 
than were hers to them. 

Those who know Ireland will have no difficulty in 
believing that Miss Coppinger had no warmer sympathisers 
in her feelings concerning Larry and the Mangan household 
than the Coppinger's Court retainers, despite the fact that 
none of them were of her communion, nor did they share her 
political views. And no less will those who know Ireland, 



8o MOUNT MUSIC 

recognise that in the Irish countryside it is the extremes 
that touch, and that there is a sympathy and understanding 
between the uppermost and the lowest strata of Irish social 
Hfe, which is not extended, by either side, to the intervening 
one. Thus, it was that Frederica could, and did converse 
with her work-people and her peasant neighbours, with a 
freedom and an implicit confidence in their good breeding, 
that it is to be feared she was incapable of extending to Larry's 
new acquaintances in Cluhir. Possibly the outdoor life, 
and the mutual engrossment in outdoor affairs, explain, in 
some degree, this sympathy, but at the root of it is the certainty 
on both sides, that the well-bred, even the chivalrous point 
of view, will govern their intercourse. 

It may seem somewhat excessive to use the word chivalry 
in connection with Mrs. Twomey, the Coppinger's Court 
dairy- woman. Yet, I dare to say that as great a soul filled 
the four feet four inches that comprised her excessively 
plain little person, as ever inspired warrior or fighting queen 
in the brave days of old. Born and bred under the Talbot- 
Lowrys, she had crossed the river when she married one of 
the Coppinger's Court workmen, and for close on thirty- 
five years she had milked the cows and ruled the dairy 
according to her own methods, which were as rigorous as 
they were remarkable, and altered not with modern enlighten- 
ment, or conformed with hygienic laws. Her husband was 
a feeble creature, whose sole claim to distinction was his 
inability to speak English. At the time that " The Family," 
(which is, say, Frederica and Larry) returned, he had become 
quite blind, and he passed a cloistered existence in a dark 
corner of his little cottage, sitting, with his hat always upon 
his head, a being seemingly as withdrawn from the current of 
life as one of the smoky brown and white china dogs on the 
shelf above the wide hearth. 

The legend ran that when he was young, a marriage had 
been arranged for him. On the appointed wedding-day 
he had gone to the chapel, the priest was there, and 
the wedding-guests, but no bride came. Michael Twomey 
therefore, after a fruitless exercise of patience, left the chapel 
in deep wrath and humiliation, and proceeded to walk home 
again. On the road he was faced by a string of laughing 
girls, and among them there was little Mary Driscoll. Mary 



MOUNT MUSIC 8i 

had then, no doubt, such grace as youth can give, and that 
she had, at least, good teeth, was obvious to the disgruntled 
Michael Twomey, as she w2ls grinning at him from ear to ear. 
Also, possibly, his sight may not even then have been of 
the best. Be that as it may, Michael caught at Mary's arm. 

** Come on to the chapel, Mary ! " he shouted at her, in 
the Irish that vias a more common speech in those days than 
it is now ; " The priest is there yet, and the money is in my 
pocket. I'll marry you ! " 

Michael had made a luckier hit than he knew. Little 
Mary Driscoll recognised the sporting quality of the sugges- 
tion, and being a girl of spirit acceded to it. 

Mary had been to America. She was one of the many of 
her class who put forth fearlessly for the United States, 
adventurirg upon the unknown without any of the qualms 
that would beset them were the bourne London, or even 
one of the cities of their native land. Wasn't Mary's mother's 
sisther's daughter, and Maggie Brian from Tullagh, and the 
dear knows how many more cousins and neighbours, before 
her in it ? Didn't her brother that was marrit in it, send her 
her ticket, and wasn't there good money to be aimed in it ? 

These queries, that, as may be seen by anyone with half 
an eye, answered themselves, having been propounded by 
Ittle Mary Driscoll, she, roaring crying, and keened by all 
her relatives to the coach-door — no railway being within 
thirty miles of her home — departed to America, and was 
swallowed up by " Boyshton " for the space of five years, 
during the passage of which, since she could neither read nor 
write, no communication passed between her and her parents, 
save only the postal orders that, through an inter- 
mediary, she unfailingly sent them. Then there was a month 
that the postal order came not, and while the old father and 
mother were wondering was Mary dead, or what ailed her, 
Maiy walked in, uglier than ever in her Boyshton clothes, 
and it was gloriously realised that not only was not Mary 
dead at all, but that she had as much saved as would bury the 
old people, or maybe marry herself. 

Mai-y had not enjoyed America. She wouldn't get her 
health in it, she said. 

(** Ye wouldn't see a fat face or a red cheek on one o' thim 
that comes back," assented Mary's mother) ; and for as little 

F 



82 MOUNTJ MUSIC 

as she was, Mary fcontinued, ^she'd rather 'bring her bones 
home with herself to Cunnock-a-Ceoii. (A cryptic phrase 
signifying that though she recognised, humorously, her own 
unworthiness, she still attached sufficient importance to her 
person to wish to bestow it upon the place of her birth.) 
Not long after her return and restoration to health, the episode 
of her marriage had occurred, and she had settled down into 
the soil of Ireland again, with, possibly, a sHghtly increased 
freedom of manner, but, saving this, with no more token on 
her of her dash into the new world, than has the little fish 
that lies and pants on the river bank for a moment, before the 
angler contemptuously chucks him into the stream again. 

Michael and Mary Twomey had been on the staff of 
Coppinger's Court for a full thirty years when, in the fullness 
of time, Frederica returned to her ancient home, bringing with 
her the young heir to it, and all its accessory tenanted lands. 
Not Gr^en Dragon or The Norreys King-at-Arms, or any 
other pontiff of pedigrees, could attach a higher import- 
ance to gentle blood than did little elderly Mary Twomey, 
elderly, but still as indomitably nimble and resolute as when 
in Frederica's childhood she would catch the donkey for her, 
and run after it, belabouring it in its rider's interest, for half 
an afternoon. 

In spite of the fact that Miss Coppinger's youth had been 
spent, chiefly, in a town, the love of the country, ingrained 
during her first years, was merely dormant, and it revived 
with her return to Coppinger's Court. The garden, the farm, 
the hens, the cattle, the dairy, were all interests to which she 
returned with that renewal of early passion, that has in it the 
fervour of youth as well as the depth of maturity. She read 
agricultural papers insatiably, and believed all that she read, 
accepting the verbal inspiration of their advertisements with 
the enthusiasm of her religious beliefs. She was a doctrinaire 
farmer, and she applied to the garden, the farm and the 
poultry-yard, the same zeal and intensity that had made her 
in earlier days the backbone of committees, and the leading 
exponent of the godly activities of St. Matthew's. She was 
regarded by the heretofore rulers of these various provinces 
with a mixture of respect, contempt, and apprehension. 
She was an incalculable force, with a predisposition towards 
novelty, and novelty, especially if founded on theory, is 



MOUNT MUSIC 83 

abhorrent to such as old Johnny Galvin the steward, or 
Peter Flood the gardener, or, stiffest in her own conceit of 
all, Mrs. Twomey of the dairy. 

*' Master Larry's coming home from Cluhir to-morrow, 
Mary," Miss Coppinger announced, with satisfaction, to 
the peculiar confection of grey hair and black chenille net 
that represented the back of Mrs. Twomey 's head, her fore- 
head being pressed against the side of the cow that she was 
milking. 

" Thang -aade ! " replied Mrs. Twomey fervently, expres- 
sing in this concise form her gratitude to her Creator for what 
she considered to be Larry's release from a very vile durance. 
*' He's long enough in it already ! " 

** The Doctor wouldn't let me move him any sooner," 
repHed Miss Coppinger, apologetically. 

" The divil doubt him, what a fool he'd be ! " said Mrs. 
Twomey, with a bitter laugh, " Aren't they all sayin' as 
sure as gun is iron it's what he wants that he'll see his daughter 
in Coppinger's Court before he dies ! " 

" What nonsense ! " said Miss Coppinger, warmly ; *' I 
should like to know who is saying it ! " 

Mrs. Twomey, milking ceaselessly, slewed her head a 
little and looked at her employer out of the corner of an 
eye as bright and as cunning as a hen's, and said : " As rich 
as your Honour is, you couldn't put a penny into the mouth 
of every man that's sayin' it ! " 

** I'm surprised at you, Mary," said Frederica, indignantly, 
" You ought to have more sense than to repeat such rubbish ! " 
To this reproach, Mrs. Twomey responded with a long 
and jubilant crow of laughter. 

*' Yerra, gerr'l alive — !" she corrected herself quickly. 
" My lady alive, I should say — sure a little thing like me'd 
tell lies as fast as a hen'd pick peas ! " 

The modesty, as well as the accuracy, of this statement 
silenced Miss Coppinger for a moment. 

' Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself ! " she resumed 
with much severity. "It is amazing to me how a decent, 
respectable little woman like you can not only tell lies, but 
boast of it ! " 

*' Ah ha ! I'm the same owld three and fourpince, an' 
will be till I die ! " triumphed ]\Irs. Twomey, with another 



84 MOUNT MUSIC 

screech of laughter, removing her tiny person, her milk- 
pail, and her stool from under the cow. '* An* I won't be 
long dyin* ! " another screech ; " an' it won't take many 
to carry me to Cunnock-a-Ceoil Churchyard ! " 

A final and prolonged burst of mirth succeeded this 
announcement, during which the unrepentant Three and 
Fourpence swung the pail on to the hook of the swinging- 
balance for weighing the milk that was Miss Coppinger's 
latest and most detested innovation. 

" Look at that now what she has for you, Miss ! Shixteen 
pints ! An' I'll engage I'll knock thirteen ounces o' butther 
out of it ! That's the little bracket cow that yourself and 
Johnny Galvin wanted to sell, an' I withstood ye ! " 

This was of the nature, jointly, of a counter-attack and of a 
truckle to the system of milk-records, but Frederica heeded 
it not. As a matter of fact, she was still somewhat dis- 
composed by the insinuations that were more numerous 
than the pennies she was believed to possess. 

** I hope, Mary," she said, repressively, " that if you 
should hear any more talk of that kind about Dr. Mangan, 
you will do your best to contradict it. He has been extremely 
kind to Master Larry, and it annoys me very much that such 
things should be said." 

Mrs. Twomey's supple mind was swift to realise that a 
change of attitude was advisable. 

** Why then, upon my truth and body, I'd blame no one 
that wanted Master Larry ! That little fella is in tune with 
all the world ! " she declared ; " but those people do be 
always gibbing and gabbing ! Give them a smell, and they're 
that suspeecious they'll do the rest ! Sure I said to that owld 
man below, Mikey Twomey" — thus dispassionately was Mrs. 
Twomey wont to speak of her husband — " I says to him, 
that your Honour was satisfied to leave Master Larry back in 
Cluhir till he'd be well agin. They were all sayin' the child 
wouldn't be said by ye to come back ! Didn't I have to put 
the heighth o' the house o' curses to it before he'd believe 
me!" 

*' Intolerable nonsense ! " said Frederica, hotly. 



CHAPTER XIII 

People have said, retrospectively, that the rise of the Mangan 
family dated from the fall of Larry Coppinger into the 
Feorish River. This may, or may not have been the case, 
but it is certain that Mrs. Mangan's way through the world 
took at about this time an upward trend, and one of the most 
perceptible ascending jerks was the result of Lady Isabel 
Talbot-Lowry's Sale of Work. 

This function had been ordained with, for object, the 
provision of a fund for the renovation of the parish church of 
Knock Ceoil, and was obviously a matter without interest 
for persons of another denomination. Lady Isabel, and Miss 
Coppinger, and others of their friends and neighbours, 
slaved at the provision of munitions for it, as good women 
will slave at such emprises, squandering energy on the con- 
struction of those by-products of the rag-bag that were 
specially consecrated to charitable purposes by the ladies of 
their period. 

" No one will want to buy this rubbish," said Miss 
Coppinger, who never tried to deceive even herself, *' but 
people will have to spend their money on something, and 
we^re not going to raffle bottles of brandy — as they did at 
that R.C. Bazaar in Riverstown ! '* 

Frederica could be just, but when a question of religion 
intervened, she found it hard to be generous. 

The Sale of Work took place during the September that 
followed the winter of Larry's disaster, and it was indis- 
putable that the Mangan family contributed materially to its 
success. Mrs. Mangan was of a class that is accustomed to 
get its money's worth, and was herself known and respected 
as an able and inveterate haggler. Yet, at the Mount Music 
Sale, she was content to hide her talent beneath innumerable 
chair-backs and night-dress cases, purchased, uncomplain- 

8s 



86 MOUNT MUSIC 

fngly, at the prices marked on them, and to permit the con- 
tents of an apparently inexhaustible purse to flow in a golden 
stream from stall to stall. Her family were no less in evidence, 
the Big Doctor offering himself a cheerful victim on the shrine 
of raffles, even attaching himself to Christian as a coadjutor 
in the sale of tickets for the disposal of one of Rinka's latest 
progeny. Mrs Mangan's son and daughter, something sub- 
dued by unfamiliar surroundings, were, on the disposal of 
the puppy-tickets, taken in hand by their father, and were, 
with an eloquence that seemed meant for a larger audience, 
made acquainted with the notable objects of the house. 

" If I could get hold of your mother, now," the Big Doctor 
would say, " I'd Hke her to see this," or " Look at that picture, 
Tishy ! That's a lovely woman ! The Major's grand- 
mother, I believe. We'll ask Miss Judith — 'pon my honour, 
it might have been done of herself ! " 

Miss Judith, with a fruit and flower stall near the portrait 
in question, coldly admitted the relationship, and ignored 
the question of the likeness. Judith was of the age of intoler- 
ance ; moreover, she was at that moment in the act of selling 
a button-hole to Bill Kirby, and the Doctor's enthusiasm 
was undesired. 

The little family party moved on, while Dr. Mangan, with 
the ease of an habitue^ indicated to his son and daughter the 
ancestral portraits in the dining-room, the CromweUian 
arms on the staircase, the coats-of-arms, the Indian weapons, 
the foxes' masks in the hall. The son and daughter received 
the information coldly. It was their first introduction to 
the interior of Mount Music, and while Tishy was filled with 
a great resolve to be impressed by nothing, Barty was silenced 
by those tortures that unfamiliar surroundings have power 
to inflict upon the shy. 

In his determination to instruct his young in all the possible 
objects of interest, Dr. Mangan strolled away from the 
crowded scene of the sale, and led them down the long passage, 
dedicated to sporting prints, that led to the library. 

*' There's a picture there that's worth seeing, of a Meet at 
Coppinger's Court in the time of Larry's grandfather," he 
announced impressively, as he opened the door. " The 
Talbot-Lowrys and the Coppingers were always fine sports- 



men " 



MOUNT MUSIC 87 

A tall old screen stood between the door and the fireplace ; 
from behind it a hunted voice said : 

** Who the devil's there now ? " 

Dr. Mangan thought, complacently : '* My diagnosis was 
correct ! " Aloud he said to his son and daughter, in a tone 
of hoarse consternation : ** To think of our blundering in 
on the Major like this ! Here ! Away now, the pair of you ! " 

He advanced from behind the screen. 

" Major ! My most humble apologies ! I never thought 
of you being here ! I was showing that boy and girl of mine 
some of your beautiful things," 

Major Talbot-Lowry was unlike his daughter Judith in 
many things, and not least in his easy sufferance of those 
whom she, in youthful arrogance, called cads. 

" Come in. Doctor, and have a cigar in peace," he said, 
hospitably, putting on one side the novel he was reading. 
*' I thought you were Evans, or one of the maids, coming to 
bother me. This damned show has turned the house upside 
down ! " 

" Well, it seems a great success," said Dr. Mangan 
cordially. 

" Very good of you to come," responded his host, ** more 
especially when it's — er — it's — er — such a purely local 
affair " 

Dr. Mangan understood that he was receiving the meed of 
religious tolerance. 

*' Well, Major," he said, expansively, *' I lived long enough 
one time in England to learn that we mustn't give in too much 
to the clerical gentlemen ! My own instinct is to be 
neighbourly, and to let my friends mind their own religion." 

" Quite so, quite so," said Major Dick, magnanimously, 
forgetting, for the moment, those epithets that, in his more 
heated moments, he was accustomed to apply to the ministers 
of the Church to which he did not belong. ** Quite so, 
Doctor. I'm all for toleration, and let the parsons fight it 
out among 'em ! Busy men, like you and me, haven't time 
to worry about these affairs — we've other things to think 
about i " He stretched a long arm for a box of cigars, and 
handed it to his visitor ; *' sit down for a bit. There's no 
hurry. The ladies can have it all their own way for a while ! " 
Dr. Mangan lowered his huge person into an armchair of 



88 MOUNT MUSIC 

suitable proportions, and for some moments smoked his 
cigar in appreciative silence. As a matter of fact, he was 
planning an approach to the subject that had 'instigated his 
visit to the library, but he was in no hurry to begin upon it, 
remembering that the longest way round is often the shortest 
way home. 

" By the way. Major," he said, taking the cigar from his 
mouth, and regarding it with affection, " did some one tell 
me that you were looking for a farming horse ? " 

" If they didn't, they might have," replied Dick. 
** McKinnon's at me to get another. I was going to ask you 
if you knew of anything ? '' 

*' Well now, that's funny. I was wondering to myself this 
morning what I'd do with that big brown horse of mine. 
He'll not go hunting again, he never got the better of that 
hurt he got. But he's the very cut of a farm-horse. You 
see, the poor devil had to carry me ! " ended the Big Doctor, 
with a laugh at himself. 

" I'll tell McKinnon of him. He wants a horse that will — " 
a recital of the accomplishments exacted by Dick's steward 
followed. 

Dr. Mangan listened with attention. 

" Tell McKinnon he'd better have him over on trial. I know 
him and his requirements ! The horse mightn't be able to 
play the piano for him ! " said the Doctor, facetiously. " I'm 
not afraid of yoUy Major, but I've a great respect for Mr. 
McKinnon ! " 

",ph, I'll tell old Mack he'll be lucky to get him," said 
Dick, with his pleasant laugh ; " you and I will strike the 
bargain ! " 

The approach had been pegged out, and Dr. Mangan 
turned, for the moment, to other subjects. 

It was a damp and sodden day near the beginning of 
September, and a comfortable turf fire centralised and gave 
point to the room, as a fire inevitably does. Major Talbot- 
Lowry was in the habit of saying that the day of the month 
never warmed anybody yet, and if it was only for the sake of 
the books — the truth being that the library fire at Mount Music 
had never, in the memory of housemaid, been extinguished 
save only when " the Major was out of home." Dick, like 
most out-of-door men, considered that fresh air should be 



MOUNT MUSIC 89 

kept in its proper place, outside the walls of the house, and 
an ancient atmosphere, in which the varied scents of turf, 
tobacco, old books, and old hound-couples, all had their 
share, filled the large, dingy old room. Dusty and composite 
squirrel-hoards of objects that defy classification, covered 
outlying tables, and lay in heaps on the floor, awaiting that 
resurrection to useful life that Major Talbot-Lowry's faith 
held would some day be theirs, and were, in the meantime, 
the despair and demoralisation of housemaids. 

Deep in the bearskin rug in front of the fire (a trophy of 
one of the rifles that filled a glass-fronted case over the mantel- 
shelf) lay the two little fox-terriers, Rinka and Tashpy, in 
moody and determined repose. For a brief period of suffer- 
ing they had attempted to cleave to Christian ; but as the 
throng grew, and the time for tea lingered, they had, in high 
offence, betaken themselves to their ultimate citadel, the 
library. 

" I suppose it was her pup I was raffling awhile ago," 
remarked Dr. Mangan, presently, as Rinka languidly rose, 
and having stretched herself, and yawned, musically and 
meretriciously, put her nose on his broad knee, deliberating 
as to whether the distinction of a human lap outweighed the 
lowly comfort of the bearskin. 

" Doggie I Poor doggie ! Down, now, down ! " Dr. 
Mangan had no idea how to talk to dogs, and he did not wish 
Rinka to sit on his best grey trousers. 

*' Hit her a smack ! " said Major Dick ; "don't let her 
bother you. Christian has spoilt these dogs till they're 
perfect nuisances ! Yes, it's her pup. Who won it ? It 
ought to be a clinker ; it was the best of the lot " 

'* I d'no did they draw for it yet. I took three tickets for 
it myself " said the Doctor. " I want it for a sort of a cousin 
of me own — a very sporting chap that's coming to Cluhir ; 
he asked me could I get him a dog." 

" What's he going to do in Cluhir ? " asked Dick, carelessly. 

The approach was now clear, and Dr. Mangan began to 
advance. 

** Well, he's just taken his degree. He's a doctor, and he's 
coming here for a while. He can give me a help while he's 
looking out for a dispensary. He'd like some place where 
he'd get a little hunting now and then. I expect you know 



90 MOUNT MUSIC 

his father, Major — old Tom Aherne, of Pribawn *' 

Major Talbot-Lowry became more interested. 

** You don't say old Tom's son is a doctor ! By Jove 
That's very creditable to him — a decent old fellow Tom was — 
and you say he wants to hunt ? That's the right sort of 
doctor ! Look here ! " 

Dick sat up, the light of inspiration woke in his ingenuous 
blue eyes, he wrinkled his forehead with the super-intelligent 
concentration of a not very brilliant intellect. *' Didn't I 
hear that old Fogarty is giving up the Dispensary here? 
Why don't you run him for that ? " 

The shepherding of Dick Lowry was really an affair of a 
simpHcity unworthy the preparation made by that ruse old 
collie, the Big Doctor. Nevertheless, being an artist, he 
continued to play the game. 

" Knock Ceoil ! Begad, that's a great notion ! Now 
I come to think of it, I did hear something of old Fogarty 
giving up, but somehow I never thought of young Danny 
Aherne in connection with it. I thought I was as well able 
as any man to put two and two together, but I declare I 
might never have thought of it if it hadn't been for you ! 
They say, if you're too close to a thing, you can't see it ' " 

Thus did the collie yap, while the sheep (who was a member 
of the Dispensary Committee) gratified, and pleasantly con- 
scious of originality, trotted up the path and into the fold that 
had been prepared for it. 

Meanwhile, in what house-agents call the reception- 
rooms, the Sale of Work raged on, with auctions, with raffles, 
with card -fortunes, told in a cave of rugs by a devoted 
sorceress, in a temperature that would inure her to face with 
composure the witch's destiny at the stake ; with *' occasional 
music," that fell upon the turmoil of talk more softly than any 
petals from blown roses on the grass, and was just 
sufficiently perceptible to impart the requisite flavour of 
festivity. One item of the musical programme had indeed 
had power to still the storm, but since it was contributed 
by the Mangan Quartet, it must be admitted that, charming 
though it was, it owed something of its success to surprise. 
The countryside had rallied to Lady Isabel with a response 
that did credit to her as to them, yet, thronged though the 
rooms were the Mangan family shone with a unique 



MOUNT MUSIC 91 

lustre as alone representing the mighty Church of Rome. 

*' Wonderful of them to come ! " said the Church of Ireland 
ladies approvingly ; *' the only R.C.'s here ! " 

Yet the Mangan family was not quite alone in this repre- 
sentative position ; young Mr. Coppinger, their (as it were) 
inventor and patentee, shared it with them, and was, more- 
over, beginning, for the first time, and not without displeasure, 
to realise something of the social complications that are 
involved by the difference of creed. It was a matter of 
atmosphere ; quite intangible, and quite perceptible. Larry 
was discovering that he was something of an anomaty. *' Only 
an R.C. by accident," as he had heard someone say, in 
apparent extenuation (a benevolence that he found irritating). 
He was learning the meaning of the sudden silences, the too 
obvious changes of the course of conversation, that seemed to 
occur when he drew near. He had not, as yet, formulated 
these things to himself, but, on this turbulent afternoon, 
it was possibly some livelier apprehension of them, that 
made him gravitate towards Barty Mangan, as towards a 
fellow pariah, and induced him to seek with him the 
far asylum of the schoolroom. There, save for the school- 
room cat, they were alone, and they sat for some minutes 
in grateful silence, looking out, across misty stretches 
of grass, to the river, and beyond it to the dense green 
of the trees of Coppinger's Court. The sky was very 
low and grey ; by leaning out of the window a little, a far- 
off reach of river, at the western end of the valley, could be 
descried ; above it there was a narrow slit in the clouds, 
and through it a faint and lovely primrose light fell, like a 
veil, that hid, while it told of the deathbed repentance of 
the dying day. Larry dragged his chair into the corner of 
the window, and watched the growing glory of the sunset 
with all his ardent soul in his eyes. 

Whatever this boy did, he did vividly, and to Barty Mangan, 
seated on the shadow side, watching him, he was, as ever, a 
pageant, a being of incalculable impulse, of flashing intensity 
and splendour. 

" Where on earth did you go, Barty ? I looked about for 
you for ages before I found you ; but there was such an awful 
crowd of women — I'm jolly glad to get out ot it ! " Larry 
leaned back in his chair and proceeded to light a 



92 MOUNT MUSIC 

cigarette, as an assertion of the rights of a man of nearly 
seventeen. 

" My father was taking Tishy and me about, showing us 
the house," replied Barty, apologetically. (As a matter of 
fact, he said ** me fawther," but if this, and similar details of 
pronunciation, are not known by nature, it is labour in vain 
to attempt to indicate them by means of the wholly inadequate 
English alphabet.) " Larry," he went on, with the candour 
that made a gentleman of him, " I never was in a house like 
this before. I declare to you it frightens me ! I feel like a 
rat gone astray ! I was in the dining-room by myself, looking 
at the pictures, and that old fella' of a butler came in and 
frightened the heels off me ! He kept an eye on me that was 
like a flame from a blow-pipe ! You'd say he thought I 
was going to steal the house ' " 

" I expect he did, too," said Larry, " especially if he thought 
that you were a pal of mine. He hates me like blazes. He's 
one of those damned Orangemen. I say, do you remember 
that thing in The Spirit of the Nation, * Orange and Green 
will carry the Day ' ? I bet old Evans would rather lose, 
any day, than be * linked in his might ' with a Papist like you 
or me 1 It's a most extraordinary thing how religion plays 
the devil with Ireland ! " 

There are certain standard truisms that must be redis- 
covered by each successive generation (possibly because 
they have bored the preceding one to extinction), and Larry 
was of the age at which truisms reveal themselves as new 
ideas, and sing and shine with the radiancy of morning stars. 
He was also young enough, and just sufficiently interested in 
religion, to find it exciting to denounce it. The fervour of 
his indictment lifted him from his chair, and he stood, with 
the evening light on his hot face, enjoying his theme, and his 
audience. 

** I stayed with some people in England last holidays, 
friends of my people's ; Protestants they were, too — ' Sour- 
faces,' as the ' Leader ' calls them ! — and they didn't give a 
blow what religion I was ! That was my affair, they thought 
— and so it was, too ! Not like this crowd here — I don't 
mean my own people, you know," he added hastily, " they're 
all right ! " 

*' Oh, I'm sure ! " said Barty, in instant assent. 



MOUNT MUSIC 93 

" I hate England, of course," continued the student of 
The Spirit of the Nation, hurriedly, " but I must say I 
get sick of this eternal blackguarding of Catholics by 
Protestants, and Protestants by Catholics " 

" Ah, they don't mean it half the time ! " put in Barty, 
pacifically ; " it's just a trick they have ! " 

" Well, I don't care ! " said Larry, who didn't like being 
interrupted, with a fling of his head ; " they shouldn't do it ! 
I hear people shutting up when I come into the room — ^just 
as if I didn't jolly well know they were abusing the priests or 
something like that. And if they only knew it, / don't care 
a curse how much they abuse them ! " 

He took an angry pull at his cigarette, glaring at the 
unoffending Barty. " ' 'Tis'nt the man I respects, 'tis the 
office ! ' That's what Mrs. Twomey said, when I was chaffing 
her for dragging gravel up from the river to put in front of 
her house, because the priest, whom she loathes, was going 
to have a * station ' there ! " 

The orator paused for breath, as well as for the duty of 
keeping his cigarette alight. 

" Well, and isn't she quite right, too ? " said Barty. " I've 
no great fancy for Father Greer, but that doesn't affect my 
feehng for the Church." 

He rose, and resting his elbows on the window-sill, leaned 
out into the still air. 

" By Jingo ! You don't often see the beat o' that for a 
sky ! Look at it, Larry. There's Orange and Green for 
you, if you like ! God ! I wish we could get them to work 
together like that ! " 

One of those transformation scenes that sometimes follow 
on an overcast and rainy day, was happening in the west. 
The sun had sunk behind the hills, the grey clouds had 
vanished ; the higher heaven was green, clear and pale, 
but low in the west, long and fleecy rollers of golden cloud 
lay in a sea of burning orange. 

At about the same time, the golden stream that had flowed 
so generously from Mrs. Mangan's purse, had failed, and Mrs. 
Mangan, her arms full of the fruit of those Christian graces of 
Faith, Hope and Charity, that are indispensable to the success 
of a bazaar, was asking Evans to order for her her *' caw," by 



94 MOUNT MUSIC 

which term she indicated the vehicle that had conveyed her 
to the scene of her triumph. 

For it was evident to the meanest capacity that Mrs. Mangan 
had now paid her footing in society. 



CHAPTER XIV 

*' Go away from me, Miss Christian ! " shouted Mrs. Twomey 
(but this was merely an ejaculation of pleased surprise, not 
to be taken literally). " Go-to-God-he-did-not ! " 

" He did, indeed, Mrs. Twomey ! " replied Christian, 
rooting at her habit pocket, and extracting her purse. " He 
said that he'd won the scholarship, and he knew you were 
praying hard for him or he wouldn't have got it, and he said 
I was to give you this, with his love." 

*' This " was a golden sovereign, a coin that did not often 
in its beauty and entirety come Mrs. Twomey's way. 

She curtseyed so low that since — as has been said — she 
was but little over four feet, Christian had to lean low over 
Harry's withers in order to drop the sovereign into her hand. 

'' That the sun may shine on his soul, my lovely gentleman ! 
That he may never want crown, pown', nor shi'n, nor you 
nayther ! The Kingdom o' Heaven is your due, the pair 
of yee, and may yee be long going there ! Amin ! " 

A silent and prayerful moment followed on the benedic- 
tions, and Mrs. Twomey's bright little eyes rolled devoutly 
heavenwards. This concession to the solemnity of the 
occasion disposed of, the beneficiary became normal again. 

*•' Look ! " she resumed, while she bestowed the sovereign 
in an incredibly old bag-purse W'th a brass rim ; " tell him 
there's always one foolish in a family, and what it is with 
Masther Larry, he's too give-ish ! That s what he is ! " 

'* You can te'i him so yourself," replied Christian. '* He'll 
be home in a week." 

" Very good, faith ! There's a welcome before him what- 
ever time he'll come I Sure I thought he'd be kept back in 
England till the Christmas ? " 

** He's finished with school now," said Christian. * He s 
going abroad for a bit after Chiistmas, and then he's going to 
Oxford ! " 

95 



96 MOUNT MUSIC 

The glory in Christian's voice conveyed more to Mrs. 
Twomey than any statement of fact could achieve. 

** Well, well ! I'm proud out of him, the poor child ! 
But I wisht it was home in his own house he was to be," she 
replied, raising her skirt, and stuffing the purse into a large 
pocket that hung round her waist over a red flannel petticoat ; 
" ha n't he lessons enough t learnt } " 

" Oh, but he loves going to Oxford, Mrs. Twomey," said 
Christian ; " he's looking forward to it awfully ; and Pm 
going to France to do lessons, too ! I'll be talking French to 
you, Mrs. Twomey, when I come back ! " 

Mrs. Twomey uttered a screech of well-simulated horror. 

** For God's sake, child, do not ! " she exclaimed ; ** didn't 
I know one o' thim in Boyshton, a docthor he was, and a 
German. He had as many slishes and sloshes as'd fill a 
book ! Sure I thought I'd lose me life thrying could I make 
off at all what he said to me ! " 

" Well, I shall be slishiag and sloshing to you when I 
come home, Mrs. Twomey ! " said Christian, who was skilled 
in converse with such as Mrs. Twomey ; " but it will be 
in French. I suppose you talked German to your Boston 
doctor ? " 

" H'th indeed ! Little enough I said to him ! I never 
had anny wish for thim docthors at all. Look at the little 
rakeen that's after gettin' the Dispinsaiy at Cunnock-a-Ceoil ! 
Three hundred pound the father ped for it for him ! A low, 
hungry Httle fella, that'd thravel the counthry for the sake of 
a ha'penny — God ! " 

The flow of M^s. Twomey 's eloquence ceased in shock, as 
Major Talbot-Lowry and Miss Coppinger emerged from the 
dairy behind her. 

** Well, Mary," said Dick, " who is it who's so hard up 
for ha'pence ? " 

Mrs. Twomey's equanimity was not slow to re-establish 
itself. She and the Major were " the one age," and they had 
grown up together. 

" Why then, your Honour knows him well, and too well ! " 
she snapped at him, looking up his long length to his hand- 
some, good natured face, much as a minute female cur- 
dog might look and snap, presuming on her sex, at a Great 
Dane. " It's ihe new Httle docthor, Danny Aherne, that 
your Honour is afther putting m the Dispinsary ! " 



MOUNT MUSIC 97 

** Oh, that poor little fellow ? " said Dick, laughing, but 
with a touch of discomposure ; " / didn't put him there. 
What's the matter with him, any how ? Why, he hasn't 
been at the job three months ! Give the man time, Mary, 
give him time ! I'll engage you'll all be in love with him 
by this time next year ! " 

Mrs. Twomey glanced at Miss Coppinger, and replied with 
decorous pietv : 

" God grant it ! " 

She then, with an admirable assumption of respect for her 
superiors, and zeal for her office, moved past her visitors into 
the dairy. 

Dick Talbot-Lowry hesitated a moment or two, then he 
laughed again, and strode after her into the dark dairy ; Miss 
Coppinger followed him. Mrs. Twomey, a tiny and almost 
imperceptible bundle, was already on her knees in a corner, 
scrubbing a glistening metal churn, and so engrossed in her 
task as to be unaware of her visitors. 

" Look here, Mary," began the Major, with a touch of 
severity ; " what's all this about Doctor Aherne ? " 

Mrs. Twomey rose from her knees, dried her little scarlet 
claws in her apron, and stood to attention. Having opened 
the debate by calling fervently upon her God to witness that 
she knew nothing of the matter, she proceeded, like a solo 
pianist, to run her fingers, as it were, lightly over the keys. 
Passing swiftly from her own birth, upbringing, invincible 
respectability, and remoteness from all neighbours, or know- 
ledge of neighbours, she coruscated in a cadenza in which 
the families of Talbot-Lowry and Coppinger, and her devotion 
to both, were dazzlingly blended, and finished in a grand chord 
on the apparently irrelevant fact that she would die dead 
before she would put down any dirty stain before the Major's 
honour. 

** But Mary," interposed Frederica, with an inartistic 
directness that was in painful contrast to the cadenza, " what 
has the Major got to say to Doctor Aherne ? " 

The question was ignored ; the artist dashed on into a 
presto movement, in which, as far as any direct theme was 
discernible. Dr. Mangan, his cupidity, his riches, the riches 
of Dr. Aherne 's parents were the leading motives. Also, 
parenthetically, that Danny Aherne was without shoe or 

G 



98 MOUNT MUSIC 

stocking to his foot when he was going to school in Pribawn 
with her own poor little boy. *' And look at him now ! " 
continued Mrs. Twomey, on a high reciting note, and still 
presto, " with his car and his horse, and his coat with an owld 
cat skin for a collar on it, and his Tommy-shirts without 
tails ! " 

There was an instant of pause, and Frederica breathed the 
words " * Dicky ' shirt-fronts ! " to her bewildered cousin. 

" Himself and the Big Docthor walking the streets of Cluhir 
like two paycocks ! " went on Mrs. Twomey with ever- 
increasing speed and fury. *' Ha ! Ha ! Didn't I meet 
him back in Pribawn ere yistherday. * How great you are 
in yourself ! ' says I to him. * It done you no harm to kill 
a woman ! ' says I. * Mind your own business ! ' says he to 
me. ' Throth then, an' I will mind it ! ' says I, * an' I'll 
have plenty to mind it without you ! I'll have plenty to 
mind it without yourself ! Dannileen alay ! ' " 

" What on earth are you talking about ? " Dick broke in 
impatiently. 

Mrs. Twomey flung a glance to the doorway. Christian 
was no longer there. On a lower key, and directed to Miss 
Coppinger, a fresh stream flowed. A young woman had died ; 
a young woman who had been privileged to marry a relative, 
of a degree of relationship obscure, but still honoured, of 
Mikey Twomey 's ; " and she afther having a young son, 
and the boy that marrit her as proud ! — and a very good baby, 
and what misfortune came to her no one'd know, only the 
Lord God Almighty, but she died on them. And she a fine, 
hard, hearty, blushy, big lump of a gerr'l. And 'tis true 
what they said " 

The details that followed were hissed, prestissimo, into the 
ear of Miss Coppinger, but that Dr. Aherne was to be blamed, 
was made as clear to Dick Talbot-Lowry as to his cousin. 

The tale was concluded in tears. 

*' Look ! I has to cry when I thinks of it ! '* 

It is impossible with Mrs. Twomey, and her like, to argue a 
point, or to attempt an appeal to reason. A flat and dicta- 
torial contradiction may have some temporary effect, and 
Major Talbot-Lowry adopted this method, for lack of better, 
in defence of his nominee. Mrs. Twomey, however, con- 
tinued to weep. 



MOUNT MUSIC 99 

* But Mary," urged Fredrica, " there isn't a doctor in 
the world who doesn't lose a patient sometimes. It may 
not have been this unfortunate young man's fault in the 

least " 

*' 'Tisn't that I'm crying for at all," sobbed Mrs. Twomey, 
a deplorable little figure, her head bent down, while she wiped 
violently and alternately her nose and her eyes in her 
sacking apron. " But it is what the people is sayin' on the 

roads about" (sob) " about " (sniff) 

" About what ? " said Dick, who was being bored. 
*' About your Honour ! " returned Mrs. Twomey, in a sort 
of roar. 

*' And what the devil are they saying about me ? " 

" God forbid that I'd put down any dirty stain before your 

Honour," sobbed Mrs. Twomey, recurring to her earlier 

metaphor ; " it's that big horse that ye're afther buyin' 

from Docthor Mangan ; they say that he gave him to ye too 

cheap on the head of it " 

*' On the head of what, woman ? " shouted Dick, now pass- 
ing, by the well-worn channel of anxiety, from boredom to 
anger. 

" On the head of the Dispinsary ! Sure they says 'twas 
your Honour gave it to Danny Aherne ! " 

It is unnecessary to record Major Talbot-Lowry's indigna- 
tion on hearing this charge. The dairy, with its low ceiling 
and paven floor, echoed, submissively, his well-justified 
strictures on the lies and evil speaking of his humbler neigh- 
bours, and Mrs. Twomey dried her eyes (much as she would 
scrub out one of her milk-pans) and hearkened. 

Who shall say if she believed him } There is a standard of 
honour, rigid and stern, for gentlemen, just as there is quite 
another standard for those who do not, in the opinion of a 
people, Austrian in their definition of what is or is not gentle 
birth, merit that title. Dick Talbot-Lowry was a gentleman, 
and, in her own words, no " dirty stain " would ever be 
attributed to him by Mary Twomey, but even she knew that 
the ethics of buying and selling a horse apply to no other 
transaction, and she knew also that in the disposal of a 
*' place," more may occur than meets the eye. She resented 
the slur on her chieftain, but, in spite of her wrath, she could 
not feel quite certain that the accusation was entirely 
unfounded. 



CHAPTER XV 

The town of Cluhir had more features than those that have 
already been enumerated, to entitle it to respect. There 
was, primarily, the great river, that moved majestically in 
its midst, bearing a church, impartially, on its either bank, 
and hiding and nourishing in its depths the salmon that gave 
the town its reason for existence. There was the tall and 
noble bridge that spanned the river, and joined the rival 
churches together (a feat of which it is safe to say no other 
power in Ireland was capable). It was made of that blue- 
grey limestone that builds bridges, and churches, and houses, 
with an equal success, and it was the equivalent of a profes- 
sion for many of the inhabitants of the town, who were 
accustomed to spend long, meditative hours upon it, criticising 
the fishermen on the bank below, watching for fish, talking 
of fish, thinking of fish, without haste, and with a good deal 
of rest. There was also Hallinan's Hotel, that was very far 
from being a mere country hotel. The stately bow-windows 
of its coffee-room have already been mentioned, but its wide 
verandah must not be forgotten, stone-paven, glass-roofed, 
umbrageous with tropic vegetation, beneath whose shade, 
on the sunny days that are enjoyed by the lesser world of 
men, sad anglers, in ancient tweed suits, lolled, broken- 
heartedly, in basket-chairs. And, finally, on the town's 
highest level, was The Mall, reserved, dignified, with a double 
row of great beech-trees, and behind them, on both sides of 
the wide roadway, the reserved and dignified houses of the 
magnates of Cluhir. Eminent in both these qualities was 
No. 6 ; almost too much so, Mrs. Mangan thought sometimes. 
On a wet day she would say, it would be as good for you to be 
in the Back of Beyond itself, as here, where you might be 
flattening your nose all day and not see as much as a bike 
going by. 

I GO 



MOUNT M1L5SIC ' ' ■' loi 

Dr. Mangan, however, fuliy'-recognii^ecl the\valire' of this 
seclusion. His surgery was at the back of the house, and its 
unbroken quiet was grateful to a man who had much to do, 
and plenty to think of. He was seated in it, one mild 
February evening, some months after the election of Dr. 
Aherne. It had been market-day in Cluhir ; patients had 
been many, and fees satisfactory. The Doctor reclined in 
front of a good turf and wood fire, and smoked a mellow 
pipe, and reviewed the run of events. Danny Aherne had 
been in, to speak to him about a case, that afternoon, and 
Dr. Mangan's thoughts ran back to that little affair of the 
Knock Ceoil Dispensary, and of Major Talbot-Lowry's 
part in the matter. Danny had just nipped in before the 
Local Government Bill took the power away from the old 
Dispensary Committees. Dam' lucky for Danny. The 
Major had been useful enough. It hadn't been his vote, 
so much as his influence, that had got the boy the job. The 
affair, as far as the Doctor was concerned, was of quite 
minor importance, but it had been useful in promoting the 
feeling of intimacy between the houses of Mangan and 
Talbot-Lowry. That omniscient composite authority, " The 
people on the roads," whose views had been quoted by Mrs. 
Twomey, had not been wrong in hinting that the Doctor had 
permitted the Major to have the best of the bargain about the 
big brown horse. Old Tom Aherne had made it well worth 
his while to do so, so everyone had come comfortably out of 
the transaction. Nor had Dr. Mangan, in diagnosing Major 
Talbot-Lowry, been wrong in his assumption that Dick, 
generous, and elated by his success in bargaining, would wish 
to indemnify his opponent for having had the worst of it, 
and would consider the support of Danny Aherne as a suit- 
able expression of the wish. 

The Big Doctor's intimacy with Dick had progressed of 
late with remarkable rapidity. During one of those friendly 
talks over the Mount Music library fire, that had latterly 
been recurring with increasing frequency, an opportunity 
had arisen for the Doctor — ** a warm man," as has been said 
— to offer to the Major a tangible proof of his friendship. 

*' After all, there's the money lying idle at my bank," the 
Doctor had said, breezily. 

Dick, in a moment of irritation and perplexity, had ex- 



102 MOUNT T^USIC 

patiated on tbe expcnssc consequent on launching sons into 
professions, and also on the pig-headed determination of 
annuitants to " hang on," regardless of the inconveniences 
occasioned to a heavily-burdened property by this want of 
consideration 

*' Three half-sisters of my father's," says Dick, " as old as 
three men each of 'em, and not a notion of dying among 'em ! 
They'll see me out, I'll swear ! " 

It was then that that idle money had been tactfully referred 
to. 

** I'll knock better interest out of you. Major, than the 
bank'll give me ! " said the Big Doctor, jovially. *' I want no 
security from you ! Your word " 

" Oh, that will never do, my dear fellow," Dick had replied, 
as he was meant to reply. " Of course it must be a pukka 
business deal. I'll give you " 

In his relief, Dick was ready to give to this kind William 
of Deloraine any security that he could suggest. It was, of 
course, a purely nominal affair — but still — what about a 
mortgage on the house and demesne ? How would that do ? 

The Doctor thought it would do very well. 

It should be established, while it was still possible to induce 
the reader to accept such a statement, that the Big Doctor 
was, as he himself might have said, ** not too bad a fellow 
altogether ! " In public life, a fighter, wily and skilled ; 
compassionate to the poor, yet exacting, implacably, practical 
recognition of his compassion. In his own house, easy- 
going and autocratic ; in his Church, a slave ; a confidential 
slave, whose gladiatorial gifts were valued, and whose 
idiosyncracies might be humoured, but none the less, a slave. 
He was like an elephant in his hugeness, and suppleness, 
his dangerousness, and his gentleness. His head was not 
crowned with the bald benevolence that an elephant wears, 
but seated on his neck was a mahout, and the mahout was 
Father Greer, the Parish Priest of Cluhir. 

Now, on this quiet evening, he sat and smoked by the fire, 
and> touching *' the tender stops of various quills," his eager 
thought paused longest on the note that stood for Tishy. 
Tishy was, in her own way, as sound an asset as any that he 
possessed, a thoroughly well-made article, a right-down 



MOUNT MUSIC 103 

handsome girl, the Big Doctor thought complacently, good 
enough for any position, and for any man. 

** But she's not for any man, I can tell them ! " thought 
Tishy's father ; " that's just where the difference of it is ! 
I'll see to that, you make take your oath ! " 

Then he began to consider his son. He could not feel 
the same confidence in Barty that Tishy inspired. Where 
Barty got hold of all his dam-silly notions was more than 
anyone, least of all his father, could imagine. Nevertheless, 
they had had their uses, and might still justify themselves 
** in a sense," he thought ; " if not in one wav, maybe in 
another." He moved on to his wife. How could she con- 
tribute to the Great Ideas ? Ideas were not much in her line, 
but if you told her what to do, she'd do it. After all, that was 
the main thing. Women's own notions were often more 
bother than they w^ere worth. Poor Annie ! His big mouth, 
under the coarse black moustache, spread into a smile, and 
his blue-grey eyes smiled with it. *' I was a fool once about 
her, and b' Jove, I think I'm not much better now ! " 
he said to himself, indulgently. The handsomest woman 
this minute in the barony, and she had never so much as 
looked crooked at any man since the day he married her. 
After all, she had been a credit at that Mount Music show. 
There wasn't a woman to touch her in the place ; she had 
held her own with them ; she had spent his money as he had 
told her to spend it. Like a lady. *' I like that ; how much ? 
Here's your money ! " That was what he had told her to 
say, and she had said it all right. No damned huxterings. 
And those women whom he wished her to get on with, she 
had got on with. They liked her. It was easy to see that ; 
and Lady Isabel had often come in to see her since the show, 
and had stayed for tea, as friendly as you please. Annie was 
all right. 

The gossip of Cluhir had been as mistaken in the matter 
of the Mangans as gossip often is. Francis Mangan had 
married his wife for the entirely injudicious reason that her 
beauty had mastered his common sense. After his marriage 
his common sense, having regained the upper hand, was 
satisfied that, even though her 

" Charms were to change by to-morrow 
And fleet in his arms," > 



104 MOUNT MUSIC 

she would still be the only wife in the world for him. None 
the less he did not pretend indifference to the knowledge 
that his wife was the handsomest woman in Cluhir, and there 
was, indeed, no reason why he should do so. And thus the 
Big Doctor had a double triumph. 

There came a fumbling tap on the door, it opened a little, 
and Hannah's head came twisting round it. 

*' Docthor ! " spoke the head, like a Teraph, " the Misthress 
says to have ye come in. The supper's ready, and the priest 
is in it." 

This remarkable statement was accepted by the Doctor 
with composure, as expressing the fact that Father Greer 
had arrived. 

*' Tell her I'm coming this minute," he said, rising ponder- 
ously to his feet ; " say to them to go down without me." 
He locked up the fees that were lying on the table, being a 
careful man, and washed his huge, pale hands with the 
particularity that a doctor brings to that task. Huge though 
they were, they had the sensitiveness that is the gift of music, 
and is also part of the endowment of the surgeon. 

" Ah, here he is now ! " said Mrs. Mangan, as the Doctor 
came, enormously, into the small dining-room. ** For 
shame for you, Francis, to be so late." 

** Ah, don't scold him, Mrs. Mangan ! " said the priest 
simpering conventionally. " Wasn't it ministering to the 
afflicted that delayed him ! Doctors mustn't be subjected 
to the rules that bind ordinary people ! " 

" That's right, Father," said the Doctor, beginning to 
carve a large, cold goose, with the skill that his trade bestows ; 
** stand up for me now ! Don't let her bully me — though 
indeed I might be used to it by this time ! " 

" Doesn't he look like it, the poor fella ! " scoffed Mrs. 
Mangan, directing a melting look at her husband ; " starved 
and pairsecuted ! That's what he is ! " 

Father Greer smiled permissively over the rim of his glass 
of whisky and water ; it was strong and good, and the food 
was good also, and abundant. Mrs. Mangan's suppers were 
as generous as her own contours, and were noted for their 
excellence. She herself was not so much to the priest's 
taste. He was celibate by nature as well as by profession. 
Women were antagonistic to him, and Mrs. Mangan, godly 



MOUNT MUSIC 105 

matron though she was, seemed to him to symbolize a very 
different ordering of hfe to that which he approved ; but the 
Big Doctor was an asset of the Church who must be simpered 
upon, and for whose sake a Httle social boredom must be 
unrepiningly endured. He was an older man, by a good many 
years, than the Doctor, and was nearer sixty than fifty, but 
his figure was slight and active, and his scant hair was dark 
and silky, though there was a light dust of grey in it over the 
ears, which were thin and outstanding, and shared with his 
nostrils and eyelids the tinge of red that was denied to the 
rest of his face. He had the wide, brains-carrying forehead 
of a fox, as well as a fox's narrow jaw, but his eyes were small 
and black, and as quick as a bird's. 

Barty and Tishy, who were not agreed in many things, were 
agreed in being afraid of him. They sat in perfect silence, 
while their mother occupied herself with directions to Hannah, 
who hovered, indeterminately, near the door, and their father 
discoursed the visitor. Father Greer was something of a 
traveller, and he was now giving an instructive account of a 
recent visit to Switzerland, and of the " winter sports " that 
had occupied the energies of all in the hotel save himself. 

*' I found the air as bracing and as serviceable to me as 
you had led me to expect," he said to his host, *' but the 
sports seemed to me to make a toil of pleasure, and the dancing 
that went on every night — 'twas impossible to sleep ! Well ! 
Youthful frivolity, I suppose, must be condoned, but I may 
say I was greatly annoyed at an incident that occurred at a 
neighbouring hotel. Mostly English, the visitors were, and 
they held a Protestant service on Sunday in the saller-mongy." 

Barty looked secretly at his sister. His expression said : 

And why shouldn't they } " 

Father Greer ignored the look, and continued his recital : 

As was quite right and proper for them to do." 

There was a blink of the black eyes, and Barty recognised 
that he had not been unobserved. 

'* There was what is called a Reading-party of young min, 
with a tutor, at the hotel," went on the priest. " Protestants 
they were — so far as they had any religion — but onlywunof 
them attended that service. It was said he was the wun and 
only person able to play the piano in the hotel. Some 
English ladies requested him to play — I believe there was 



(( 



ii 



io6 MOUNT MUSIC 

some very unsuitable joking about it — and he consented. 
He attended that service ; he played their English hymns,** 
Father Greer paused, and gathered up the table with a glance 
before his climax. " That young man, I regret to say, was 
an Irish Catholic, one whom you all know — young Mr. St. 
Lawrence Coppinger ! " 

Mrs. Mangan, who had been too much harassed by 
Hannah's failure to decode her signals, to attend, heard the 
name only, and said lovingly : 

** The dear boy ! How nice for him and you to meet so 
far away from home. Father ! " 

Barty's satisfaction at his mother's unexpected comment 
took the form of kicking his sister, heavily. Tishy, who sang 
in the chapel choir, and was at this time inclined to regard 
herself as a pillar of the Church, returned the kick with a 
viciousness that indicated a hostile point of view, and said 
loftily : 

" But to think they'd ask him ! The English are very lax. 
Don't you think so. Father ? " 

Dr. Mangan laughed apologetically, 

** Well, it's a wonder that a party of sheep would let a 
poor goat into their fold at all ! " he said, in a voice that asked 
for forgiveness for the erring goat. *' I suppose the young 
ladies got him in a corner, and 'twas hard for him to refuse. 
You'd hardly blame him for that ! " 

Father Greer looked bleakly down his nose and said nothing. 

Barty scowled, considering that his hero stood in no need 
of apology. Dr. Mangan continued his endeavour to save 
the situation. 

" But there's no understanding of Protestants ! " he 
resumed, good-humouredly ; *' I met an old fellow on the 
train th' other day, old William Henderson of Glen Brickeen, 
and he was telling me of a row he had with his clergyman, 
the Reverend Wilson. * Oh,' says he, * I gave up going to 
church on head of the it ! * ' And isn't that a great sin for 
you,' says I, ' to give up going to church } ' ' Oh,' says he, 
* I explain that to God every Saturday. He understands 
well what Mr. Henderson done to me, and why I wouldn't 
go to church as long as he was in it.' * Maybe,' said I, 
funning him, ' some day he might be before you in Heaven 
with his story, and what'U you do then } ' ' Oh ' said he, 



MOUNT MUSIC 107 

I'll make out a place for myself, never fear ! There's 
places of all sorts in it ! ' says he. * I suppose it's the many 
mansions you're thinking of ! ' said I. * You think the poor 
Roman Catholics don't know their Bibles, but I know that 
much ! ' " 

*' Well, Francis," said Mrs. Mangan, admiringly, " I 
never knew you that you'd be without an answer, no matter 
what anyone'd say to you ! * Many mansions,' says you ! 
I declare I'd never have thought of that ! Father, wouldn't 
you say he answered him well ! " 

Father Greer, having made his point, smiled indulgently, 
and, as he was deeply involved in a mouthful of tough goose, 
the smile, blended with the act of mastication, made him 
look more than ever like a fox, a fox in a trap, gnashing at 
his captors. 

" I always knew the Doctor could be trusted to * give a 
knave an answer,' as Shakespeare says," he said, when the 
power of speech was restored to him ; "I'm often surprised 
at the liberty, I might almost say the licence, that is met with 
in Protestants in connection with their religion. Take the 
case of young Mr. Coppinger that I was speaking of. That 
was a melancholy instance of evil communications corrupting 
good manners. I may say that I regard with anxiety a too 
great freedom, what I may call an unrestrained intercourse, 
between members of the two churches — that is, indeed, if 
I am justified in describing as a church that which I have heard 
stigmatised as * a fortuitous concourse of atheistic atoms ' ! " 

Father Greer's nose came down over his upper lip, the 
corners of his mouth went up, and a succession of sniffs 
indicated that he was laughing. 

" That may be rather severe," he conceded, " but I may 
say that, for my part, I consider that Catholics have a 
sufficiency of pleasing society within their own communion, 
without striving to go beyond it ! " 

Father Greer paused, looked round the table as if to receive 
the general assent, and put his sharp nose into the tumbler 
of brown whisky and water, to whose replenishing the Doctor 
had not failed to attend. 

A rather stricken silence followed. Mrs. Mangan 's large 
and handsome brown eyes turned guiltily to her husband, 
and moved on from his face to one of the many trophies of 



io8 MOUNT MUSIC 

the Mount Music Sale, a Protestant chair back, now flaunting 
itself on a Catholic chair, under the very eyes of the Parish 
Priest ! 

Barty glowered at his plate ; Tishy, who had not enjoyed 
herself at the Sale, felt, in consequence, that she was now 
justified in doing so at the expense of her family, and held up 
her head, and looked at her father. It was plain to see that 
the elephant had felt the prick of the Mahout's ankus. The 
Big Doctor's face was perturbed. Tishy saw him look at the 
little priest's glass, and knew that he wished it were empty, 
in order that he might pour into it a propitiatory oblation. 
He cleared his throat once or twice before he spoke. 

'* Very true, Father, very true. I used to think the same 
thing in England. The chaps I used to meet there — no 
one would know what religion they belong to, no more than 
if they were heathens. That young lad that you weren't 
pleased with — young Coppinger — I believe he's as good a 
Catholic as any of us, but he happens to be thrown mostly 
among Protestants. I often think it's no more than our duty 
as Catholics to try and see as much as we can of him. He 
and Barty here, got to be very great with each other the time 
he was with us, but it's only an odd time now that we get a 
sight of him." 

" I was talking to him a long while, the last time he was 
home," said Barty, looking up, with something smouldering 
in his voice, *' he told me he was going to Oxford next 
October. It's well to be him ! " he ended defiantly. 

*' Now, I wouldn't be too sure of that at all ! " said Father 
Greer, with a smoothness that implied the laying aside of 
the ankus ; *' I think, my young friend, that your good father's 
house is as safe and happy a place for you as you could wish 
for ! " He turned to the Doctor. ** I may say that there is 
a belief among certain classes that no one is properly edjucated 
without they've been sent to England. I thought my friend 
Barty, was a better Irishman than it seems he is ! " 

"I'm as good an Irishman as any man ! " said Barty, 
in a sudden blaze, " and may-be better than some ! " 

His face had turned white, and his eyes, that were as large 
and dark as his mother's, met those of Father Greer with 
the courage of anger. 

*' What harm is it to want to get a better education than 



MOUNT MUSIC 109 

what I have ? I don't see why I shouldn't want to go to 
Oxford, or Switzerland either, for the matter o' that — as well 
as another ! " 

Father Greer, as Dr. Mangan remarked subsequently, 
took Barty's making a fool of himself very well. He put his 
head on one side, his black eyebrows went up, and he again 
uttered that succession of sniifs that served him for a laugh. 

" It seems that I have made a railing accusation without 
meaning it, and brought down fire from heaven, like I iC 
Prophet Elijah, only to find that I am myself to forrum the 
burnt offering ! " he said, pleasantly. *' Well, well, Barty, 
don't consume me entirely in your just indignation, and I'll 
promise you to make no insinuendoes in future as to whether 
you're a good or bad Irishman ! " 

I am unable to determine if Father Greer deliberately 
devised this felicitous amalgamation of the two words that 
were in his mind, or if it was unintentional, and an indication 
that Barty's brief flare of revolt had flustered him a little. 
I am inchned to the latter theory. In any case, the word is 
a useful one. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Christian was in the kennels, in their innermost depths 
She was, in fact, seated on the bench of *' the ladies " 
lodging-house, on the dry and rustling cushion of bracken on 
which Major Talbot-Lowry bedded his pack. 

Yearning to her, sitting all over her, covering her with 
their ponderous affection, were the hounds. Two large 
ladies had each a head on each of her shoulders ; two more 
had laid their chins on her knees, and were gazing raptly 
into her face. The less favoured stood, and squeezed, and 
pushed, and panted, with glowing eyes and waving sterns, 
in as close a circle round her as it was possible to form. 

*' Dearest things ! " apostrophised Christian, " I feel like 
Nero — I wish you had only one lovely head, so that I might 
kiss you all at once ! " 

" Rot ! " said Larry, who was leaning against the wall, 
facing her, and saying : *' Down, you brute ! " at intervals, 
to hounds, who, having failed to force their way to Christian 
were directing their attention to him, to the detriment of 
his grey flannel trousers. " And look at your dress from their 
filthy paws ! " 

" Good Gawd, Mr. Larry Sir ! Don't say paws ! 'Ounds 
'ave/(?(?^," responded Christian, whose imitation of Cottingham 
was no less accurate now than it had been some eight years 
earlier ; *' and I don't care a pin for this old skirt anyway — " 

" I'm as fond of hounds as anyone," said Larry, reprovingly, 
*' but I must say I should draw the line at their licking my 
face ! " 

" They don't ! " said Christian, indignantly ; " that's the 
beauty of them. They never lick — except perhaps my 
darling Nancy, because I nursed her when she had 
pneumonia." 

no 



MOUNT MUSIC III 

" If I were you, Cottingham, I wouldn't let Miss Christian 
into the kennels," said Larry, with severity, " she makes lap- 
dogs of the hounds ! " 

Cottingham had joined the party, and was leaning on the 
half-door of the kennel, watching his hounds with the never- 
failing interest of a good kennel-huntsman. 

*' I couldn't be too 'ard on Miss Christeen, sir," replied 
Cottingham ; " her's the best walk I have. That there 
Nancy was a sickly little thing enough when I sent 'er to 
Miss Christeen, and look at 'er now ! A slapping fine bitch V* 

Christian turned a slow and expressionless eye upon her 
accuser, indicating triumph. 

" It's like this with that Nancy," continued Cottingham, 
with whom the preaching habit, fostered by years of laying 
down the law to subservient fields, was inveterate. *' Her 
got that fond of Miss Christeen, her foUered 'er about, the 
way the ole lamb followed Mary, as they say. And that 
artful she got ! Wouldn't try a yard ! An' she 'ad the 'ole 
o' the young entry like 'erself. Any sort of a check, and back 
they all comes an' looks at me, wi' their 'eads a one side, 
and their sterns agoin' like this," he wagged a stubby fore- 
finger to and fro in so precisely the right rhythm, that, stubby 
as it was, no magic wand could evolve more instantly the 
scene to be presented ; " an' that's 'ow it'd be, th'old 'ounds 
workin' 'ard, and the young uns lookin' like they 'as nothin' 
to do only admire of me ! " 

" Quite right, too ! " truckled Christian. 

" Ah, Miss Christeen, I'm too used to soft soap, I am ! " 

" Well, you know, Cottingham, it was / cured Nancy 
when she took to following me about." She turned to Larry. 
" Luckily, I broke my wrist, and by the time I was able to 
ride again she had given me up and taken to hunting." 

*' That's what you says. Miss," said Cottingham ; " but 
I reckon what her wanted was what her got from me — a good 
'idin' ! " 

Having made his point, Cottingham, a true artist departed 
at the little toddling run that in kennels indicates devotion 
to duty, combined with a slippery floor. 

" I had forgotten about your breaking your wrist — I 
remember about my own, right enough ! " said Larry, 
*' What rotten luck ! " 



112 MOUNT MUSIC 

*' Oh, it's dead sound now," said Christian. " Look ! " 
She stood up, and held out both her slender hands to him 
across the intervening hounds' backs. " I bet you don't 
know which is which ! " 

Larry took a hand in each of his, and flexed the wrists. 
" The left, wasn't it ? " he said, without releasing them, 
*' Not that I see any difference, only I remember now that I 
heard you had smashed the same one that I did." 

*' It did hurt — horribly I I expect you know. It hurts still 
a little, sometimes." She looked at him for sympathy. 
She was nearly eighteen now, and had caught him up in 
height, so that her brown eyes looked straight into his blue 



ones. 



Poor little paw ! " said Larry patronisingly ; he was going 
to be twenty-one in a week, and felt immeasurably older than 
Christian. *' Oh, by the way, I forgot ! I mustn't say paw. 
Must I call it ' foot ' ? I'll make it well, anyhow ! " he ended, 
and, in what he felt to be the manner of a kind uncle, he kissed 
the injured wrist. 

*' Quite well now, thank you ! " said Christian, mockingly, 
withdrawing her hands. *' If I had only thought of it, I 
could have got Nancy to lick it ! It might have done just as 
well ! " Her colour had risen a little. *' Let's come out ; 
it's rather stuffy in here." 

At a little distance from the kennel precincts were waiting 
two small, smooth, white dogs, daughters of the adored 
companions of Christian's childhood, themselves scarcely 
less adored than were their parents. Seated, as was their 
practice, in a well-chosen position, that combined seclusion 
with a commanding view of the detested hounds, they had 
not ceased (as was also their practice) from loud and desolate 
barking, an exercise that in the case of Dooley, the younger 
and more highly-strung of the couple, was accustomed to 
develop into a sustained contralto wail. As Christian and 
Larry left the kennel yard, this moment had been reached. 
Dooley's nose was in the air, her mouth was as round as the 
neck of a bottle, her white throat looked as long as a swan's 
throat, and the bark was softening into sobs. Christian flung 
herself down, and gathered her and her sister, the second 
Rinka, into her arms. 

*' Let's sit down here," she said, sending her hat spinning 



MOUNT MUSIC 113 

down the grassy slope ; "it's too lovely to go in, and I want 
a cigarette." 

" Haven't got one," said Larry. " Sorry. I gave them 
up in Lent, and now I'm doing as well without 'em." 

" Nerve gone already ? " said Christian. ** That's what 
comes of missing a season ! " She laughed up at him. 

** Don't know," said Larry, dropping down beside her on 
the dry, sun-hot grass ; *' quite likely ; but it wasn't that. 
The fact was " — he hesitated — *' I met a very decent Padre 
at Miirren. We used to talk a lot about — oh, no end 
of things ! When he found I was Irish he was awfully pleased 
He congratulated me on belonging to the Old Faith — he's 
Irish himself, but he's never lived over here. He said it was 
such a wonderful link with the people and the past — such a 
romantic religion ! And so it is, you know. It hadn't 
struck me, somehow, till Father Nugent talked of it. I'm 
sorry for you, Christian ! Don't you feel being a Protestant 
is a bit — well — stodgy — and respectable — no sort of poetry ? " 

*' I like stodge," said Christian, serenely. 

Larry paid this frivolity no attention. He had only recently 
discovered that he possessed a soul, and he was as much 
pleased with it as he had been with his first watch, and he 
found much the same enjoyment in producing and examining 
it, that had been afforded to him by the watch. 

" It was Father Nugent's suggestion to give up smoking," 
he said, unable to eliminate from his voice a touch of pride, 
** I knocked off whiskies and sodas, too — but that was off my 
own bat." 

" * Smite them by the merit of the Lenten Fast ! ' " 
murmured Christian. Unlike Larry, she evaded personalities 
and especially those that involved a discussion of religion. 
** Larry, do you remember the awful rags we used to have 
over that hymn ! What ages it is since you were at home ! 
Not since I've had my hair up ! " 

*' By Jove, I hardly knew you when I saw you first ! " 
responded Larry, his sails filling on a fresh tack with character- 
istic speed. ** It's not as light as it used to be. I'm not sure 
that I like it up." 

He looked at her critically. Her hair, thick and waving, 
lay darkly on her forehead, and was stacked in masses upon 
her small head on a system known only to herself. 
H 



114 MOUNT MUSIC 

" That's a pity," said Christian, coolly, " and I hate it, 
too. But unluckily, whether you and I hate it or not, it's 
got to stay up now — that's to say, when it will. I'm sup- 
posed to be ' out.' I'm nearly eighteen, you know. I 
never thought I'd live to such an age." 

*' Oh, wait till you're * of age,' like me ! " said Larry, 
impressively. *' Then you'll know the horrors of longevity. 
I've got to take over the show — the tenants and all the rest 
of it — from your father, and Aunt Freddy, next week ! An 
awful job it's going to be ! Cousin Dick says that these 
revisions of rent have played the deuce all round. I shall 
make old Barty Mangan my agent. He's a solicitor now all 
right. He can run the show. I like old Barty, don't you ? " 
" I hardly ever see him," said Christian, cautiously. " He 
has rather nice looks — more like a poet than a solicitor." 

" You see, I want to go abroad, and do some music, and 
paint," said Larry, pressing on with his own subject. ** Take 

painting on seriously, you know " 

" I know," said Christian, thoughtfully, " I don't envy 
Barty Mangan ! I know Papa's having botheration with our 

people " 

** All the more reason for me to earn my living by 
painting ! " responded Larry cheerfully. 

They were sitting at the edge of a patch of plantation. 
It was the middle of May, and the young larches behind them 
were clad in a cloud of pale emerald ; the clumps of 
hawthorn, that were dotted about the park, between the 
kennels and the river, were sending forth the fragrance of 
their whiteness ; the new green had come into the grass, though 
it was almost smothered in the snow of daisies ; primroses 
and wild hyacinths had strayed from the little wood, and 
straggling down the hillside, had joined hands and agreed, 
the first, to linger, the latter, to hasten into blow, and so to 
share the month between them. Just below, on the turn of 
the hill, was a big thicket of furze bushes, more golden than 
gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. From 
Larry's woods across the Ownashee, the cuckoo's voice came, as 
melodiously monotonous and as full of associations as the 
bell of a village church. Silvery clouds were sailing very 
high in a sky of thinnest, sweetest blue ; little jets of sparkling 
sound, rising and falling in it, bespoke the invisible, rapturous 



MOUNT MUSIC 115 

larks, tireless as a playing fountain ; and the sun blazed down 
on the boy and the girl and the two little dogs seated there 
in the full of it. 

Larry rolled over and over on the grass like a young colt. 

" Oh, murder-in-Irish ! " he groaned, in sheer ecstasy, 
" isn't it gorgeous ! I always forget how entirely stunning 
Ireland is, till I come back to it ! " 

He could say no more, as both dogs had sprung from 
Christian's arms, and were feverishly licking his face. 

'* Your own fault ! " said Christian, answering his expostula- 
tions. *' Kind little things, they thought you asked for it." 

" I repeat," said Larry, lying on his back, and holding off 
his assailants with difficulty, " eliminating badly brought-up 
dogs, that Ireland is the finest country in the world, and — 
listen to this, Christian ! — the Irish are the finest people, 
and the worst governed ! " 

*' * The foinest pisanthry in Europe ' ! " said Christian, in 
gibing exaggeration. " Larry, you've got awfully English ! " 

Larry rolled over and came into play again, sitting bolt 
upright ; " I'm a Home Ruler ! " 

** Don't be absurd," said Christian, tranquilly. 

" I'm not the least absurd," returned Larry. " I mean 
it. If not a Republican ! " he added, ostentatiously, and 
began to chant : 

*' And Ireland shall be free, 
" From the centre to the sea, 
'* And huzza for Libertee, 
" Says the Shan Van Voght ! ' 



(( 



I say, you remember the old Companions of Finn ? Well, 
they're rolling up again ! I've started them at Oxford. 
Six members already ! Two men in my college, and " 

** English, of course ! " interrupted Christian, with an 
effective tone of elderly superiority. " People like yourself, 
who know nothing about it ! " 

This was an insult not easily to be tolerated ; the gage of 
battle did not lie long at Larry's feet, and it may be admitted 
that the challenger would have been ill pleased had it been 
ignored. 

In the five years that had passed since the curtain of this 



ii6 MOUNT MUSIC 

narrative went down on Christian, she had changed more 
than had Larry. It was as though that extra-worldly endow- 
ment of her childhood having ceased to manifest in external 
ways, had turned its light inwards. The power of hearing 
what others could not hear, had faded, but a subtlety of mind, 
a clarity, a sort of pondering, intellectual self-consciousness 
(that had no kinship with that other form of self-conscious- 
ness that is only inverted self-conceit) had taken the place 
of those voices that she had once refused to deny to the 
inquisitorial John. 

The battle, with regard to the resurrected Companions 
of Finn, having waxed and waned in a course that need not 
here be followed, the argument took on another phase. 

" You know, Larry," Christian said, half-absently twisting 
and arranging Dooley's little tan ears, in order to express, on 
Dooley's behalf, with them, various emotions, " it seems to 
me that all these political revolutions that you are so anxious 
to start, for the good of Ireland, are like putting the cart 
before the horse." 

" What do you mean ? " asked Larry, eyeing her with 
undisguised surprise. 

** Well," said Christian, slowly, gazing across the valley 
with eyes more than ever like the clearest brown stream, 
" you've got to begin with the individual. After all, Ireland 
is made up of individuals, and each of them contributes in 
some way to the big result. It seems to me that the real 

Spirit of the Nation is — is " 

Her gaze at the far woods became fixed, and her hands 
ceased to play with the soft, tan ears. 

** Is what ? " said Larry, rather impatiently. He was 
bewildered by this grave, young debater, and was trying to 
reconcile her with the child he had left behind him last year, 
or even with the child who, five minutes ago, had wished to 
impress a comprehensive kiss on all the hounds at once. 
Moreover, a young gentleman on the imminent verge of 
official manhood, is justified in resenting ideas, in opposition 
to his own, being offered to him by a little girl, with her hair 
only just " up," whom he regards as no more than a niece, 
or thereabouts. 

" Well," said Christian, still more slowly, her eyes lifting 
from the woods and resting on a shining snowball of a cloud, 



MOUNT MUSIC 117 

" it's Religious Intolerance, I think ! That seems to me the 
Spirit of the Nation — my side as bad as yours, and yours as 
bad as mine " 

** Oh, the parsons and the priests," said Larry, airily. "Oh 
you wait, Christian ! You don't know ! You've been stuck 
down here in a hole. If you met Father Nugent " 

*' But I don't mean them only," said Christian, standing 
to her guns ; *' I mean the individual — you and me ! Just 
anybody — we're all the same. The Shan van Voght has got 
to free us from each other before she takes on England ! " 
She looked at Larry ; the seriousness left her face, and she 
shook back the dark hair from her forehead with just the same 
gay, mutinous toss of the head that a young horse will give 
when the rider picks up the reins. *' I may have been stuck 
down here in a hole ! " said Christian, mocking him ; *' but 
anyhow, I haven't lived in England and lost my eye ! " 

"What about seeing from a distance, and seeing the whole 
and not the part ? " retorted Larry. "What about a bird's 
eye view ? " He had risen to his feet and was looking down 
at her, feeling the moral support of physical elevation. 

" That depends on the bird ! " said Christian. " Now, 

if it were a goose, for example ! Like Hi ! Dogs ! 

Look, Larry ! Look ! Down by the furze bushes ! A 
huge rabbit ! " 

The discussion closed abruptly, as such discussions will, 
when the disputants are at the golden age, and views and 
opinions are winged, and have not yet become ballast, or, 
which is worse, turned to mooring-stones. 



CHAPTER XVII 

The origin of the Coppinger's Court picnic was complicated 
and has remained obscure. Whether its author had been 
Mrs. Mangan, or her friend, Mrs. Whelply, or young Mr. 
Coppinger himself, was uncertain, but the fact remained 
that a picnic, with indirect reference to the blossoming of 
the bluebells {(.e.^ the wild hyacinths) was decided upon, 
and that Larry, in the course of the visit that he never failed 
to pay to the Mangan household, had placed the demesne 
of Coppinger's Court at the disposal of the ladies of Cluhir, 
as a scene for the entertainment. 

Larry's fidelity to the Mangans was a matter that was 
undoubtedly something of a trial to his Aunt Freddy. She 
was too inflexibly conscientious to attempt to deny, even to 
Lady Isabel, still less to herself, that such fidelity was 
creditable, but she felt justified in considering it superfluous ; 
when, as now, it took the form of inviting a party of unknown 
size, under the patronage of Mrs. Mangan, to accept the 
Ownashee as its washpot, and (as it were) to cast forth its 
shoe over Coppinger's Court, Aunt Freddy may be forgiven the 
manoeuvre that arranged a seance with her Dublin dentist for 
the date decided upon for the picnic, and may be felt to deserve 
the sympathy of those who can appreciate the inwardness 
of her position. And this last, improbable though it may seem 
to some people, was made immensely more difficult by the 
simple and irrelevant fact that she, on Sundays, betook 
herself to the Knock Ceoil Protestant church, while Larry 
went to the white chapel on the hill. It was to the grey, 
stone Protestant church that Larry's forbears had gone for 
one hundred and fifty years or more, ever since the then reign- 

ii8 



MOUNT MUSIC 119 

ing Coppinger had fallen in love with an English heiress, 
and, agreeing with Henri Quatre, that Paris was well worth a 
Mass, had ' verted to marry her. Never in living memory 
had the congregations that filled full the white chapel on the 
hill, included in their dutiful ranks any beingof higher degree 
than might have been found in those other congregations, 
that, some nineteen hundred years earlier, were gathered in the 
hills of Galilee ; those humble crowds who came to hear Christ 
preach, of whom it was said that they were of the common 
people, and that they heard Him gladly. Miss Frederica 
was as good a Christian — in some ways probably a better 
one — as might have been found in the white chapel, but it 
was impossible for her not to feel, what was, indeed, felt, 
with a singular mixture of satisfaction and disapproval, by 
the majority of the white chapel's congregation, that Larr^^'s 
parents had, socially, been ill-advised when they " made 
a Roman of him.'* In the creed of Mary Twomey, and her 
fellows, it was only in conformity with natural law in the 
spiritual world that ginthry should go to church, and the like 
of herself to chapel. She, no more than Frederica, could 
subdue the feeling of incongruity imparted by the fact of 
Master Larry and herself worshipping together ; it was as 
though, if she had run into the kitchen to get a sup of hot 
water, or the wetting of her mouth o' tay, she had found him 
sitting among the maids in the servants' hall. Mary Twomey, 
and her fellows, would have indignantly repudiated the idea 
of taking service with one of their own church. " No ! 
Thank God ! I never sank to that ! " Mary had once said, 
when such had been imputed to her. There was no question 
of religion in it. Merely of fitness. So inveterate in the 
older Ireland is, or was, what Christian might have considered 
to be the outcome of The Spirit of the Nation, but that, in 
this special connection, may with, perhaps, greater accuracy, 
be ascribed to the aristocratic instinct. 

Something like a sheet of thin ice had come into existence 
between Larry's life and that of his aunt. It had come 
gradually, almost imperceptibly. There had been a time, 
after his First Communion, when Larry had confided in 
Frederica. He had even told her of the anxieties he had felt 
before his first Confession, and of how difficult he had found it 
to decide upon the sins that he could, without arrogance lay 



120 MOUNT MUSIC 

to his own charge. He told her that he had invented several 
crimes, in order to dignify the occasion. Frederica wondered 
secretly how that charming Jesuit Father, to whom, at Monks- 
hurst, she had been introduced as her nephew's spiritual 
director, had dealt with the sinner ; but this, Larry had not 
divulged. There were, from that time forward, an increasing 
number of things that Larry did not divulge to his Aunt 
Freddy, and the sheet of ice slowly became thicker. It was 
*' the religious aspect of the case," as Miss Coppinger com- 
plained to Mr. Fetherston, that made it so impossible for 
her to speak her mind to Larry about the Mangans. 

*' Do you remember you advised us to send him to 
Oxford ? " she reproached him. "I'm afraid it has only 
had the effect of making him take his religion more seriously 
— for which, I suppose, one ought to be thankful " . . 

'* And why not ? " the Reverend Charles had replied. 
** They say all roads lead to Rome, so no doubt the converse 
holds good, and out of Rome some road must lead to Heaven ! ' 

The Reverend Charles was pleased with his aphorism, 
but Frederica could not enjoy it. Not even Mr. Fetherston 
could console her on this matter. 

" His very niceness and simplicity make him a prey for 
undesirables," she mourned, " and he has that peculiar gift 
of making every one fond of him. I suppose it is his looks — " 

" Then you cannot blame the undesirables," her rector 
responded. 

Larry's looks had, certainly, a spell that was something in 
excess of what may be called their " face-value." Though 
legal manhood was so soon to be his status, he had still some 
of the radiance of childhood about him. His hair was of the 
same pure and infantine gold that it had been when he charged 
down on the Eldest Statesman on the stepping-stones of the 
Ownashee ; his blue eyes had lost none of their candour ; 
the touch of gilding on his upper lip was effective only at 
short range, but, when taken in connection with a very white 
and even set of teeth, and a beaming and ever-ready smile, 
it carried considerable weight. His fair skin had not yet taken 
on its summer scorch of carmine, and its soft and babyish 
pinkness softened the saliance of his short nose, and induced 
the critic to condone the want of decision in his chin. 

** Not a handsome boy, exactly," people said, " but," and 



MOUNT MUSIC 121 

here people would smile relentingly, " if he had been a girl, 
one would certainly quite have said * pretty ' — so attractive- 
looking, and so — so clean ! " which might seem to be the con- 
demnation of faint praise, but was, in reality, merely the 
tribute that Larry's new-minted golden-ness of aspect 
startled from the beholder. 

He was no more than five foot nine in height, which was a 
trial that at times he felt deeply, but there are practical 
advantages for a young man who rides, in being able to do 
so at something considerably under eleven stone. At boxing, 
rowing, and games, what he lost in weight and reach, he made 
up for in speed and elasticity and endurance. Finally, it 
may be said that his figure had the gift of making old 
clothes look new, and new clothes look unaggressive, and 
when to these attributes is added a faculty for wearing hunting 
kit with accuracy and finish, it will be understood that Larry 
had early achieved standing in his college. 

The Cluhir picnic, that had so justifiably perturbed Miss 
Frederica, debouched, like a mighty river, from its wagonettes 
and outside cars, upon the lawns of Coppinger's Court, at 
about four of the clock, of a beautiful, balmy May afternoon, 
and to Larry fell the task of deciding upon its course of 
procedure. Clad in very white flannels and a prismatic 
blazer, and looking, as his most tepid supporter would 
have to allow, a picture of cleanliness, he advanced upon 
Mrs. Mangan's wagonette, and proffered an arm, fortunately 
of steel, to facilitate her descent. The five years that had 
elapsed since Larry was her guest, had effected less change 
in her than in him. Save that the bisonian fringe now held 
a grey hair or two in its dark depths, and the curves, that 
had suggested a Chesterfield sofa to her young friend, were 
now something more opulent than they had been, Mrs. 
Mangan's progress along the corridor of eternity had made no 
perceptible mark on her. Still, in assisting her descent 
from a high wagonette, an arm of steel was not out of place. 

Larry was at the age that, believing itself critical to the 
point of extinction of the rejected, yet accepts with enthusiasm 
any female creature that can wear a smart hat with assurance, 
and wag a flattering tongue with address. The Cluhir 
ladies were proficient in these arts. Mr. Coppinger was 
congratulated on his weather ; arranged by his skill, poured 



122 MOUNT MUSIC 

forth of his benevolence ! On his demesne, so green with young 
leaves, so gay with spring flowers ! Kind Mr. Coppinger 
to have created them in such profusion ! And what warmth 
was there in the Coppinger's Court sun ! The second rate 
luminary dedicated to Cluhir was no more than a candle to 
it ! Mr. Coppinger's Ant was enquired for (this, it should, 
perhaps, be explained, referred to Frederica, and had no 
entomological appHcation) suitable regrets at her absence from 
home were expressed, with a delicate implication that with 
such a host, and in such weather, the loss was the Ant's, 
and was practically negligible, so far as the ladies of Cluhir 
were concerned. And who were these, coming up the path 
from Mr. Coppinger's lovely river ? Ah, yes, the youngest 
Miss Talbot-Lowry, of course, and which brother was it ? 
Oh, the youngest one ? Mrs. Cassidy had thought the 
youngest of Lady Isabel's family was a twins — or were a. twins ? 
Which ought she to say ? 

" Well, this is half of it, anyhow ! " says young Mr. 
Coppinger, facetiously, with which Mrs. Cassidy, like the 
Miss Flamboroughs, thought she would have died with 
laughing. 

With the arrival of the youngest Miss Talbot-Lowry, and 
half the twins, a slight change fell upon Mr. Coppinger's 
voluble guests. A stiffening faint, almost imperceptible, yet 
electric, enforced the circle round Larry. Even Mrs. Whelply's 
confluent simper, that suggested an incessant dripping 
from the tap of loving kindness, failed a little. A young Mr 
Coppinger was a simple affair, but a Miss Talbot-Lowry, 
however young, might want watching. 

The youngest Miss Talbot-Lowry was, happily for herself, 
quite unaware of the estimation in which she was held. 
She had, hke Larry, that quality of selflessness that is so rare 
and so infinitely engaging ; what was she (she would have 
thought) that respect should be paid to her ? It was a tenet 
of her eccentric creed that age was not only honourable 
but was also pathetic, so, when the picnic at large had begun 
its leisurely advance through the woods to the promised land, 
Christian selected the oldest and least promising of the Cluhir 
matrons for her special attention, and made herself so agree- 
able to her, that Barty Mangan, *' mooching " (as his mother, 
afterwards reproached him) solitary, in the rear of the proces- 



MOUNT MUSIC 123 

sion, found himself in the remarkable position of wishing 
that he were his own great-aunt, Mrs. Cantwell. 

Barty Mangan*s opportunities for meeting Christian had 
been but few, but they had sufficed to light a fatal star in his 
sky, and to induce in him, when, as now, he found himself in 
her vicinity, an attitude towards the rest of the world that 
justified his mother's employment of the verb to *' mooch " 
(a word that may be taken as implying a moody and furtive 
aloofness). 

There was, Mrs. Mangan was pleased to observe, no 
mooching about her daughter. On the launching of the 
picnic, Tishy had immediately assumed the lead, with an 
aplomb and assurance justified by her family's special intimacy 
with young Mr. Coppinger, and all who knew Tishy, knew 
also that she meant to keep it. Dr. Mangan had not over- 
stated the case when, three years earlier, he had said to 
himself that she was a right-down handsome girl. Now, at 
twenty-one and a half, his paternal pride was well justified. 
Like him, she was tall and strongly built, tall, that is to say, for a 
class that rarely excels in height, and Tishy's five and a half 
feet enabled her to look down on most of her friends. Her 
broad, dark eyebrows grew straight and low over brilliant grey 
eyes, and were nearly reached by thick upward-curled black 
eyelashes. If her mouth was large, it was well-shaped, and if 
her nose did not possess the classic severity of her brother's, its 
challenging tilt was not unattractive. To these charms must be 
added shining masses of dark hair, and a complexion of so 
vivid a tone, that it seemed sometimes as though a fog of 
carmine coloured the very atmosphere about her glowing 
face. She radiated vitality, the richness and abundance 
of high summer ; she suggested a darkly gorgeous peacock- 
butterfly, and in the deHcate radiance of the spring woods, 
she seemed out of key with their slender elegance of leaf and 
spray, the soft reticence of their faint greens and greys. 

It is indeed hardly fair to expect of Tishy Mangan that she 
should be worthy of such a setting as southern Irish woods 
can offer in the month of May. It is the month of the Mother 
of God, and in the fair demesne of Coppinger's Court, Heaven 
had truly visited the earth, and was chiefly and specially 
manifest in the Wood of the Ownashee. The trees stood with 
their feet bathed in the changeful, passionate blue of the wild 



124 MOUNT MUSIC 

hyacinths, a blue that lay sometimes in deep pools, sometimes 
in thin drifts, like the azure of far skies ; the pale ferns rose 
in it, ** like sweet thoughts in a dream " ; the grey stems of 
the beeches were checquered with the sunlight that their 
thin branches and little leaves tried in vain to baffle and keep 
at bay. From the unseen river came varying voices ; some- 
times a soft chuckle that had the laughing heart of the spring 
in it, sometimes a rich and rushing harmony, that told of 
distant heights and the wind on the hills. There was a 
blackbird who was whistling over and over again the opening 
bar of the theme of a presto, that, only last week, Larry had 
heard, whipped out with frolic glee by the violins of a 
London orchestra. He wondered if, with such themes, 
it is the blackbirds who inspire the musicians, or if both have 
access to the same secret well of music, in which each can dip 
his little bucket, and bring listeners in the outer world a 
taste of the living water of melody. But since (in spite of 
the Artistic Temperament) he was a normal boy, what he 
said was : 

*' Stunning ! Isn't it ! " while he stood still, waiting, for 
the hidden artist to favour them with another flourish of that 
gay string of jewels. " He's ' recapturing ' it all right, eh ? " 
The much-quoted quotation passed by Tishy as the idle 
wind. Even had she recognised the allusion, she would have 
considered the professional raptures of a blackbird a rather 
dull subject of conversation. The gallants of Cluhir did 
did not deal in such matters in tete a tete with her, and she, 
thought, as she had thought at the children's party, long ago, 
that Larry, if not quite a bore, might, in spite of Coppinger's 
Court, rather easily become one. 

" Oh, he's stunning enough ! " she replied, with her full- 
throated, contralto laugh ; *' It must be his first cousin we 
have in the garden behind Number Six ! Dad says he 
doesn't know, does him or me sing the loudest ! " 

By Jove ! She sings ! thought Larry (as he was meant 
to think). Of course ! What a fool he was to have for- 
gotten it ! And as, at this period of his career, of the three 
arts, who were always riding a race in his soul. Music, Painting, 
and Literature, Music happened to be the leading horse, 
Larry looked upon Tishy with eyes in which a new ardour 
had awakened, and proceeded with his accustomed speed to 



MOUNT^ xMUSIC 125 

mature the details of the concert upon which he had, during 
the last sixty seconds, enthusiastically decided. 

Old Mrs. Cantwell, although unpromising of aspect, was 
by no means as deplorable, socially, as Christian had assumed 
her to be. The fact that she was the untramelled owner of 
a soundly-invested fifteen thousand pounds, that she was the 
aunt whom Dr. Mangan delighted to honour, combined with 
the allied fact that she had paid for the hiring of the picnic- 
bearing wagonette, gave her an importance that could be 
undervalued only by one as ignorant of the greater concerns 
of life as was Christian. Mrs. Cantwell accepted the com- 
panionship of the younges Miss Talbot-Lowry as no more 
than her due, and the thought that compassion had prompted 
its bestowal, was very far from her mind. None the less, 
the Noah's Ark principles that governed implicitly, if not 
ostensibly Cluhir entertainments of this nature, were firmly 
embedded in her being, and she was entirely aware of the 
furtive presence of Barty, at the rear of the procession of 
which she and Christian formed the last couple. 

** Now, my dear," she observed, while she and Christian 
paced side by side, along the river path, " you shouldn't be 
wasting time on an old woman like me ! When I was young, 
we'd have called this a Two and Two party, and I promise you 
that the likes o' you and me wouldn't have been reckoned a 
proper couple at all ! Not when I was a girl ! " 

" / should have said that you and I were irreproachably 
proper, Mrs. Cantwell," responded Christian, gaily ; " it 
isn't very kind of you to say that we aren't behaving as we 
should ! " She laughed into Mrs. Cantwell's old face, and 
she, being quite unused to girls who took the trouble to flirt 
with her, began to think that Frankie Mangan (thus she 
designated her nephew, the doctor) was right when he said that 
the youngest of the Talbot-Lowrys was the best of the bunch. 

** Ho ! Ho ! Ho ! " she said, with a laugh like the whinny 
of an old horse ; " it's a long time, since I kicked my heels 
over anything higher than a hearth-rug ! But I can tell you, 
my dear, I was a good warrant for a play-boy when I was your 
age ! There wasn't a young girl, no, nor a young man either, 
that I couldn't dance down if I gave my mind to it ! " 

Christian's response was satisfactory, and Mrs. Cantwell, 
moved to give a sample of her bygoue prowess, executed a 



126 MOUNT MUSIC 

hippopotamus-like hop and shuffle among the rustling, 
orange beech leaves of last year. 

" Polkas and Mazoorkas ! " she exclaimed. *' Them was 
all the go in my time ! Come on here, Barty, ye omadhaun ! 
I believe I could dance you off those long legs of yours this 
minute, if I was to give me mind to it ! " 

Barty, thus adjured by his great-aunt, drew near. Mrs. 
Cantwell was not a person to be lightly disobeyed, but his 
dark eyes were full of apprehension. What might Aunt 
Bessie not say ! She was incalculable, terrible. 

There are old people who appear to find an indemnity for 
their lost youth in permitting to themselves, in dealing with 
later generations, a scarifying freedom of humour in connec- 
tion with subjects which once they held sacred (for there are 
few souls that have not at some time enshrined a tender 
emotion). 

Barty had suffered before now from Aunt Bessy, and he 
thought that if she made of him an offence to Miss Talbot- 
Lowry, he would straightway rush into the river and drown 
himself. Aunt Bessy, however, potentially Rabelaisian 
though she might be, was perfectly aware of the fact that 
there is a time to speak and a time to keep silence. 

** See here, Barty," she said, " let you go on now, and tell 
your mother not to be waiting tea for me. I'll take me own 
time. Tell her never fear I'll turn up, only I Hke to go me 
own pace ! " She turned to Christian. " Go on you too, 
my dear ; I'm well enough pleased with me own company, 
and I hate to be delaying you. I'll sit down for a while and 
admire the scenery." 

Thus did Aunt Bessy, as she complacently told herself, 
watch over the interests of her great-nephew, and though her 
method was crude, it indisputably achieved its object. 

Christian and Barty Mangan walked on in silence that was 
made companionable by the gurgling whisper of the river 
behind its screen of hazels and alders ; a whisper broken now 
and again by the tittering laugh of the flying water over a 
shallow place, like someone with a good story that he cannot 
quite venture to tell out loud. 

Barty was saying to himself, distractedly : ** What'll I 
say to her ? What'll I talk to her about ? " with each repeti- 
tion winding himself, like a cocoon, deeper in webs of shyness. 



MOUNT MUSIC 127 

Christian's social perceptions were hypersensitive, and 
the cris de cceur of her suffering companion were only too 
audible to her spiritual ear At eighteen, the quality of mercy 
has seldom developed ; the young demand mercy, they expect 
to receive, not to bestow it ; but in this girl was something 
that made her different from her fellows. It was as though 
a soul more tempered, more instructed, more subtle and 
refined, had been given to her, than is vouchsafed to the 
majority of the poor creatures who are sent into this difficult 
world with an equipment that rarely meets its demands. 

This is a long-winded way of saying that Christian realised 
that she had to restore confidence in Larry's young friend, 
and that she proceeded forthwith to do so. She would have 
laughed at the thought that anyone could be afraid of her, 
but she felt instinctively that a soothing monologue, a sort 
of cradle-song, was what the occasion demanded ; so she 
began to speak of the bluebells, the woods, the weather, 
saying with a sort of languid simplicity, the things that the 
moment suggested ; *' babbling," as she subsequently 
assured Judith, ** of green fields," until she had so lulled and 
bored him, that in self-defence he produced an observation. 

" D'you read, Miss Christian ? " said Barty, bringing forth 
his mouse with an abrupt and mountainous effort. 

Christian repressed the reply that she had possessed the 
accomplishment for some years, and asked for further infor- 
mation. 

'* Poetry," said Barty, largely ; ** it's — it's the only reading 

I care for. I thought you might like it " he added, 

hurriedly, and was again wrapped in the cocoon. 

" Oh, I do, very much," said Christian, trying hard not to 
quench the smoking flax ; "I've learnt quantities by heart, 
and Larry is always lending me new books of poetry. He 
says that you and he discuss it together." 

** I never knew one like him ! " said Barty, with sudden 
energy. " There's no subject at all that he's not interested 
in ! " In the heat of his enthusiasm for Larry, the cocoon 
wrappings were temporarily shrivelled. He turned his dark, 
short-sighted eyes on Christian, and took up his parable with 
excitement. 

*' Did he tell you he's learning Irish ? I'll engage it'll 
be no trouble to him ! " 



128 MOUNT MUSIC 






He's always getting hold of new ideas," said Christian ; 

I wish / could learn Irish." 
There's a branch of the GaeHc League in Cluhir," said 
Barty, eagerly. " There are a lot learning Irish. I suppose 
you wouldn't be disposed to become a member, Miss 
Christian .? " He gazed at her imploringly. 

" I don't know if I should be allowed," said Christian, 
hesitatingly. " You see I've only just come home. I've 
been at school in Paris for the last two years " 

A memory of a ferocious denunciation of the Gaelic League 
by her father came to her ; she wondered what Barty would 
do if she offered him one of the profane imitations of the Major 
that had earned for her the laurels of the school-room. 

" Oh, I'm quite sure I mightn't become a Gaelic 
Leaguer ! " she repeated, beginning to laugh, while samples 
of her father's rhetoric welled up in her mind. 

Barty thought he had never seen anything so enchanting 
as her face, as she looked at him, laughing, with wavering 
lights, filtered through young beech leaves, in her eyes. 
He felt a delirious desire to show her that he was not a tongue- 
tied fool ; that he also, like Larry, was a man of ideas. 

" I wish to God ! " he said, with the disordered violence 
of a shy man, "that there was anny league or society in Ireland 
that would override class prejudice, and oblitherate religious 
bigotry ! " 

He had snatched a paragraph from his last address to the 
Gaelic Leaguers of Cluhir, and with it was betrayed into the 
pronunciation that mastered him in moments of excitement. 

Christian said to herself that she thanked heaven Judith 
wasn't there to make her laugh. 

" I don't think I'm a religious bigot," she said, with a faint 
tremor in her voice, " but one never knows ! " Her head was 
bent down, the brim of her large hat hid her face. 

Barty was stricken. What devil had possessed him ? 
She was hurt ! She was a Protestant, and in his cursed folly 
he had made her think he was reproaching her for Bigotry. 
Good God ! What could he do } 

Two emotions, hung, as it were, on hair-triggers, held the 
stage. In Christian, the fiend of laughter held sway, in poor 
Barty, the angel of tears. It was perhaps well for them both 
that their next step in advance took them round a bend in 
the path, and brought them face to face with the picnic. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Young Mr. Coppinger had been well inspired in his selection 
of a site for the entertainment. The trees along the river's 
bank had ceased for a space, leaving a level ring of grass, 
whereon certain limestone boulders had scattered themselves, 
with the deliberate intention, as it would seem, of providing 
seats for picnickers. Across that fairy circle of greenness 
a small vassal-stream bore its tribute waters to the Ownashee, 
with as much dignity as it had been able to assume in the forty 
level yards that lay between its suzerain and the steep glen 
down which it had flung itself. Not only had young Mr. 
Coppinger been so gracious as to provide this setting for the 
revel, but he was even now sacrificing a spotless pair of white 
flannel trousers to the needs of the company, and had con- 
centrated on the cajolery of the fire, which, obedient to the 
etiquette that rules picnic fires, refused to consume any 
fuel less stimulating than matches. Other of the young 
gentlemen of the party, including the half- twin, Mr. George 
Talbot-Lowry (now asub-Heut. R.N.) were detailed to gather 
sticks, a duty that was so arranged as to involve, with each 
load of firewood, the jumping of the vassal-stream, and thus 
gave opportunity for a display akin to that of the jungle- 
cocks, who, naturalists inform us, leap emulatively before 
their ladies. Prominent among these was that youth who, 
as a medical student, had inspired Miss Mangan in flapper- 
hood, with an admiration for his gifts, intellectual and physical, 
that was only equalled by his own appreciation of these advan- 
tages. His opinion remained unchanged, but he was beginning 
to fear that Tishy's taste was deteriorating. None sprang 
more lightly across that little stream, or commented more 
humorously on men and things, than Captain Edward 
Cloherty, R.A.M.C. ; yet Miss Mangan, to whom these 
exercises were dedicated, remained oblivious of them and 
I 129 



130 MOUNT MUSIC 

aloof, apparently wholly absorbed by Martha-like attentions 
with regard to the public welfare, and particularly those 
connected with the fire. It was not for nothing that Tishy 
had had to rise early on many a winter morning to see that 
her father should go forth to his work suitably warmed and 
fed. Now, with scathing criticisms of the methods of Mr. 
Coppinger, she swept him from his position as stoker, and, as 
by magic, or so it seemed to him, the sticks blazed, the kettle 
began to sing. Miss Mangan's skill was not limited to the 
prosaic lighting of material fires only With the two most 
distinguished young men of the party at her feet, she rose to 
the height of all her various powers. The fire roared and 
crackled, the kettle bubbled, and Tishy's grey and gleaming 
glances through the smoke were like a succession of boxes 
of matches, cast upon the responsive fires of Larry's and 
Georgy's holiday hearts. 

The young May moon has often been a factor in affairs of 
the heart whose importance cannot be ignored. It is true 
that on this especial afternoon the mischief might seem to have 
been begun before she could, strictly, have been held 
responsible ; none the less her madness must have been in 
the air, otherwise it is difficult to account for the joint and 
simultaneous overthrow of two young gentlemen of taste 
and quality, by Miss Tishy Mangan. 

Georgy, aged but 19, just home from far and forlorn seas, 
with, as the poet says, a heart for any fate, might have been 
excused for swallowing any good provided for him by the 
gods, whole, and without criticism, but for Mr. St. Lawrence 
Coppinger, lately come of age, a man of taste, endowed with 
special jinesse of feeling, it might have been expected that a 
highly-coloured peacock butterfly would have had but scant 
appeal. In fact, one is driven back upon the young May 
Moon as the sole plausible explanation of the fact that, on 
that afternoon of bewitchment, Tishy Mangan went to Larry's 
head. 

These temporary abberations are afflictions for which the 
most refined young men must occasionally be prepared, and 
Larry's overthrow was not without justification. Quite apart 
from her looks — and anyone would have been forced to admit 
that they were undeniable — there was her voice, the true 
contralto timbre^ thick and mellow, dark and sweet, like heather 



MOUNT MUSIC 131 

honey, he thought, while he and Georgy sprawled on the grass 
at her feet (and she had good feet) making very indifferent 
jokes, in that exaggerated travesty of an Irish brogue which 
is often all that an English school will leave with Irish boys, 
and vieing with each other in the folly proper to such an 
occasion. 

" I don't see your shoe-buckles ! " Larry said, looking from 
her feet to her lips, with a meaning and impudent lift of his 
blue eyes. " Have you given up wearing them ? " 

Tishy's colour deepened ; she remembered instantly what 
she was meant to remember. 

** You're regretting the choice you made, are you ? " she 
said, with a toss of her head. *' Never fear ! The buckles 
will be there when they're wanted ! " 

*' Don't trouble about them ! " says Larry, tremendously 
pleased wuth his success as a flirtatious man of the world ; 
" I don't think they will be required ! " 

It is necessary to have attained to a reasonably advanced age 
to be able to recognise pathos in the fatuities that so frequently 
form a feature of love's young dream. Christian, listening 
with one ear to her brother and cousin, while into the other 
the genuine idiom of her native land flowed, ardentlv, from 
the now unsealed lips of Barty Mangan, began to wonder 
why the boys were talking like stage Irishmen ; Georgy, she 
knew, was idiot enough for anything, but she had to admit 
to herself that Larr}"-, also, was rather overdoing it. Christian 
was able to feel amused, but she also felt, quite illogically, that 
what had been distaste for Tishy Mangan was rapidly 
deepening into dislike. 

The picnic raged on, with prodigious eatings and drinkings, 
with capsizings of teapots in full sail, with disastrous slaughter- 
ings of insects (disastrous to plates and tablecloths rather than 
to the insects) with facetious doings with heated tea-spoons 
and pellets of bread, with, in short, all that Mrs. Mangan 
and her fellow hostesses expected of a truly prosperous picnic. 

Captain Cloherty, alone, of all the company, failed to con- 
tribute his share to the sum of success. He sat silent, a thing 
of gloom, the lively angle of whose waxed, red moustache 
only accentuated the downward droop of the mouth beneath 
it. But the skeleton at the feast has its uses, if only as a 
contrast, and Mrs. Mangan, who was more observant than 



132 MOUNT MUSIC 

she appeared to be, noted the gloom with a gratified eye, 
and being entirely aware of its cause, said to herself with 
satisfaction : 

" Ha, ha, me young man ! " 

This picnic was, in truth, made ever memorable in the 
circle of Mrs. Mangan's friends by reason of the triumph 
of Tishy. 

" Ah, that was the day she cot the two birds under the 
one stone ! " Great-Aunt Cantwell (who did not care for her 
great-niece) was accustomed to say. " Well ! Such goings- 
on ! And after all, Tishy's nothing so much out of the way, 
for all Frankie Mangan thinks the world should die down before 
her ! " 

The two birds referred to were still fluttering round their 
captor, when a new element was added to the party in the 
large presence of *' Frankie Mangan " himself. The Big 
Doctor approached slowly, elephant-like in his noiseless, 
rolling gait, impressive, as is an elephant, in size, in the 
feeling he imparted of restrained strength, of intense 
intelligence, masked, as in an elephant, with benevolence, 
and held watchfully in reserve. 

He now advanced upon the scene of festivity with purpose 
in his manner. 

" Now, ladies ! Let me tell you I'm come on a very 
unpopular errand ! To apply the closure ! I think you're 
all sitting out here long enough for the time of year. 
Remember it's only May ! " 

*' We're more likely to remember it's Mayn't ! " retorted 
Mrs. Whelply, who was a recognised wit, and opponent of the 
Big Doctor. " Isn't it enough for him to bully us when we're 
sick, but he comes tormenting us when we're well, too ! " 

Thus she appealed to her fellow-matrons, looking round 
upon them for support with a festive eye. 

" You'll none of you be well long, if you don't mind your- 
selves ! " answered, with equal spirit, the Doctor, with a 
quiet eye on his daughter and her attendant swains. 

' Why then I have a sore throat this minute with scolding 
Mr. Coppinger for the nonsense he's talking ! " declared 
Mrs. Whelply. '' Asking me to sing a cawmic at the concert 
he says he's going to have ! There's no fear but whatever / 
sing will be cawmic enough ! " 



MOUNT MUSIC 133 

*' I'm sure I'll have great pleasure in cauterising you ! " 
responded the Doctor, gallantly ; *' but if you'll take my 
advice now, you won't want so much of it later on ! " 

" I thought you were going to take me on the river," said 
Tishy in a low voice to Larry, looking resentfully at her father. 

" I'll tell you what we'll do," said Larry, quickly ; ** much 
better than the river — we'll go back to the house and dance ! 
I'll fix it up with your father ! " 

" Good egg ! " said Sub-Lieut. Talbot-Lowry, with sea- 
manlike decision, *' Miss Mangan will kindly note all waltzes 
are reserved for use of naval officers ! " 

*' Miss Mangan will kindly do no such thing ! " returned 
that young lady, dealing a flash from between her curled 
eyelashes that put the naval officer temporarily out of action, 
so devastating was its effect. 

Had not Frederica Coppinger, resting in her club in Dublin, 
after a severe afternoon with her dentist, some intuition, 
some spirit-warning, of what was befalling at the home of 
her ancestors ? I believe that those spear-thrusts of nerve- 
pain that assailed her just before dinner, must have been the 
result of the wireless summons of distress sent forth to her 
by her upper-housemaid. 

'* What next, I wonder, will Master Larry be asking for } " 
said the upper housemaid to the cook. " The drawing-room 
carpet pitched into the study, and Miss Coppinger's own room 
turned upside down for the riff-raff of Cluhir to be powdering 
their noses in ! * Haven't she no powder ? ' says they. 
* No matter,' says the Doctor's daughter, * sure I have a book 
of it in me little bag ! ' " 

" I wouldn't at all doubt her ! " said the cook, saturninely, 
*' But what's the drawn'-room carpet to conjuring a supper 
out of me pocket in five minutes ? I ask you that, Eliza 
Hosford ! " 

None the less, with that deep loyalty to the honour of the 
house that is a feature in Irish domestic life as wonderful as 
it is touching, the staff of Coppinger's Court were resolved 
that — as they say in China — the face of Master Larry should 
not be blackened, and The Riff-Raff of Cluhir were 
served with a ceremony and a success that left nothing to 
be desired. 

Dr. Mangan sat in a very large armchair in front of a big 



134 MOUNT MUSIC 

fire of logs, in the hall, and smoked meditatively, and was 
seemingly quite unaware of the couples who moved past him 
between the dances, passing out through the open hall-door 
into the moon-lit May night. He did not even raise an eye- 
lid when his daughter sailed by him, as she did many times, 
with the ostentation of the young lady who is aware that her 
prowess is the subject of comment, in company, alternately, 
with the two captives of her bow and spear who had offered 
so feeble a resistance to those weapons. Tishy and her 
father alike ascribed her victory to that redoubtable and already 
creditably battle-scarred bow and spear ; they neither of 
them recognised the acknowledgements that were due to 
a certain powerful ally, the May moon. She had stolen up 
the sky at the back of the woods. The first Larry knew of 
her was the vast, incredible, pale disc behind the topmost 
boughs of the pine trees, so near that it seemed to him as 
though the crooked black branches alone were holding her 
back, and that her white fire that was pouring through them 
must consume them, *' and then it will be our turn," he said, 
seriously, and without preamble, to Tishy. 

" Our turn for what ? " asked Tishy, very naturally. 

" Our turn to be resolved into moonshine. You'll see me 
fading away into silver smoke in a minute," replied Larry. 
" Let's get out of this, I'm getting frightened ! Hold my 
hand tight ! " 

*' Go on with your nonsense ! " said Tishy. " And will 
you tell me how can I hold your hand when it's round my 
waist ? " 

Which was reasonable enough, and may be taken as a 
sufficient indication of what the moon was already responsible 
for. 

A point of red light moved in the darkness above the seat 
under the laurels, to which they were repairing, and the scent 
of a Virginian cigarette was wafted to them. 

" Who's that ? " Tishy whispered, pressing nearer to Larry ; 
but she was agreeably certain that it was the gloomy and 
misanthropic Captain Cloherty, whose place of refuge they 
had invaded. 

Christian, meanwhile, unlike Captain Cloherty, was con- 
scientiously endeavouring to enjoy herself, and was finding 
that the wheels of the chariot of pleasure drave heavily. 



MOUNT MUSIC 135 

That Barty Mangan was a good dancer was an alleviation, 
but among those stigmatised by EHza Hosford as the riff- 
raff of Cluhir, those now forgotten measures of the first 
years of this century, the prancing barn-dance, the capering 
pas-de-quatre, lent themselves to a violence that, even at the 
uncritical age of eighteen. Christian found overpowering. 
** They danced like the Priests of Baal," she told Judith. 
** One expected to see them cut themselves with knives ! " 

The information that the dog-cart had come for her was 
of the nature of a release. Barty put her into it. The May 
moon shone on his pale face as he looked up at Christian, 
and reverently took her hand in farewell. She had begun 
to find his dark and humble devotion oppressive ; she liked 
him, which did not prevent her from thanking heaven when he 
released her hand from a pressure that had lasted longer 
than he knew. He stood on the gravel and watched the depart- 
ing dog-cart vanish, like a ghostly thing, into the elusive 
mist of moonlight. The May moon, now sailing full over- 
head, looked with a broad satisfaction on the hardest hit of 
her victims. 



CHAPTER XIX 

At intervals in all histories there comes a pause, in which 
the moralities proper to the occasion are assembled, 
expounded and expanded. Such a moment might now seem 
to have arrived, its theme being the grain-of-mustard-seed-like 
character of the Cluhir picnic, as compared with the events 
that subsequently dwelt in its branches, nesting there, and 
raising up other events that flew far and wide, farther and wider 
than they can here be followed. But since moralities appeal 
only to the moral (to whom they are superfluous) it seems 
advisable to proceed at once to the primary result, which was 
the concert, that sprang like a Phoenix from the ashes of that 
fire on which the picnic kettle was boiled. 

The scheme had various appeals for its two chief promoters, 
young Mr. Coppinger and Sub-Lieut. Talbot-Lowry, R.N. 
Immanent in it was the necessity for frequent, almost for daily, 
visits to No. 6, The Mall, Cluhir. For the former of these 
gentlemen, whose acquaintance with the Mangan family 
was now of long, if of intermittent, familiarity, these visits 
afforded a less thrilling emotion than they held for the latter, 
who found himself honoured and welcomed in a degree to 
which he was quite unaccustomed at home. I^arry was not 
quite sure that he approved of this blaze of social success 
for his young cousin. It is one thing to receive, languidly, 
the adulation of those in whom such adulation may be regarded 
as an indication of a widening horizon ; but when an equal 
veneration is lavished upon the junior and disdained play- 
fellow of earlier years, the result is often a reconsideration 
of values. The May madness that rose like a mist from the 
bluebells in the woods of the Ownashee, and culminated in 
the magical light of the full moon, began to lift from the spirit 
of young Mr. Coppinger, leaving him, as he formulated it to 
himself (and found much satisfaction in the formula) bereft, 

136 



MOUNT MUSIC 137 

bored, and benignant. He was quite prepared to retire 
gracefully in favour of Georgy, and was pleased with the 
thought that his interest in Tishy had been merely the out- 
come of a mood — Vapres-midi d^unfaune — so to speak. There 
was something artistic in these transient emotions, and his 
future, as at present determined, was to be devoted to art ; 
certainly not to Tishy Mangan. Yes, he would leave Tishy 
to Georgy ; all but her voice ; in that, as an artist, he still 
retained an interest, the interest of the impresario^ whose 
search for stars is as absorbing as is that of the astronomer 
in pursuit of new worlds. 

The passion and energy of the promoter are, it may be 
supposed, born in human beings in a certain proportion 
to those who are to become their victims. In Larry, both 
qualities were highly developed, and in no way did he prove 
the genuineness of his heaven-given f.air more surely than 
in his discovery and annexation of Christian, as that rare and 
precious thing, a sympathetic and capable accompanist. 

But although the thought of dwelling upon this and other 
of the details of the Cluhir concert, is appealing, it 
must be dismissed. So much has already been said in the hope 
that some further indications as to the character and conduct 
of some of our young friends may have been deduced ; but 
now, certain glos sings upon the household of Mount Music 
must be inflicted, since it is with it, rather than with the 
capabilities of young Mr. Coppinger's troupe, that we are 
mainly occupied. 

It is not easy to say whether the process of emergence from 
the sheath of childhood, a condition that has characteristics 
more or less common to us all, is more interesting to feel 
than to observe. In Christian's case, the interest was felt 
exclusively by herself, her family being healthily absorbed 
in the conjugation of the three primary verbs, to be, to do, 
and to have, in relation, exclusively, to themselves, and that 
merely from the skin outwards. Soul-processes and develop- 
ments were unknown to them in life, and were negligible 
in books. Lady Isabel pursued her blameless way, doing 
nothing in particular, diligently and unpunctually, and spend- 
ing much time in writing long and loving letters to those of 
her family who were no longer beneath her wing, in that 
particular type of large loose handwriting whose indefinite 



138 MOUNT MUSIC 

spikes stab to the heart any hope of literary interest. Who 
shall say that she did not do her duty according to her lights ? 
But she was certainly quite unconscious of such matters as 
soul-processes. 

Alone of the Mount Music children, Christian was aware 
of an inner personality to be considered, some spirit that heard 
and responded to those voices and intimations that, as a little 
child, she had accepted as a commonplace of every day. 
By the time that she was sixteen the voices had been dis- 
couraged, if not stilled, their intimations dulled ; but she had 
discovered her soul, and had discovered also, that it had been 
born on the farther side of the river of life from the souls 
of her brethren, and that although, for the first stages, the 
stream was narrow, and the way on one bank very like that 
on the other, the two paths were divided by deep water, 
and the river widened with the passing years. 

Richard, pursuing the usual course of Irish eldest sons, 
had adopted the profession least adapted for young men of 
small means, and large spending capacity, and had gone into 
his father's old regiment. John, the zealot of an earlier 
day, was at Oxford, considering the Church ; Georgy's career 
has been announced, and the remaining twin had, with the 
special predisposition of his family towards financial failure, 
selected the profession of land-agent, in a country in which 
peasant-proprietorship was already in the air, and would soon 
become an accomplished fact. 

There remains, to complete the family history, Judith, 
and she, now aged twenty-one, was possibly the sole member 
of the house of Talbot-Lowry for whom a successful future 
might confidently be anticipated. Judith, a buccaneer by 
nature and by practice, was habitually engaged in swash- 
bucklering it on a round of visits. She was good-looking, 
tall, talkative, and an able player of all the games proper to 
the state of life to which she had been called. She was a 
competent guest, giving as much entertainment as she 
received, being of those who contribute as efficiently indirectly, 
as directly, to conversation, and are normally involved in 
one of those skirmishes of the heart, that cannot be described 
as engagements, but that, none the less, invest their heroines 
with an atmosphere of respect, and provide hostesses with 
subjects of anxiety and interest. At an early age. Christian 



MOUNT MUSIC 139 

was promoted by her elder sister to the position of confidante, 
and justified the promotion by the happy mixture of sympathy 
and cynicism with which she received the confidences. She 
was now well versed in the brief passions that, beginning at 
the second or third dance of a regimental ball, would, like 
some night-flowering tropic blossom, arrive at full splendour 
by supper time, and would expire languorously, to the strains 
of " God save the King." Christian, though young, was, as 
has been said, a capable audience. She could listen, with 
the severe and youthful grace that seemed to set her a 
little apart from others of her standing, to the feats of Judith 
and her fellow-blackguards, savouring and appraising the 
absurdities, and her comments upon them were offered with 
a sympathetic and skilled comprehension that excused her 
in Judith's eyes for her lack of ambition to emulate them. 

Dick Talbot-Lowry had ceased to boast of the predominance 
of the masculine gender among his offsprings, and rarely 
alluded to his sons without coupling with their names a 
vigorous statement of how far in excess of their value was their 
cost, usually ending with an enquiry into the dark rulings of 
Providence, who had bestowed an expensive family with one 
hand, and with the other had taken away the means of sup- 
porting it. Dick was sixty-four now, an unhappy moment 
in a dashing and artless career, with the shadow of advancing 
old age blighting and reproving the still ardent enjoyment of 
the pleasures of youth. 

" I'm an old man now ! " Dick would say, without either 
feeling or meaning it, and would bitterly resent the failure 
of his sons to contradict a statement with which they were in 
complete agreement. Only Christian, *' of all his halls had 
nursed," tried to maintain her father in a good conceit of 
himself, and to *' rise his heart " ; but there are few hearts 
for which it is more difficult to perform that office than the 
heart of a man, who, having ever (as King David says) taken 
pleasure in the strength of horses, and delighted in his own 
legs, is beginning to find that the former have become too 
strong, and the latter too weak for either comfort or confidence. 

And not these things only were troubling Dick. The 
common lot of Irish landlords, and Pterodactyli, was upon 
him, and he was in process of becoming extinct. It was his 
fate to see his income gradually diminishing, being eaten 



140 MOUNT MUSIC 

away, as the sea eats away a bulwark-less shore, by successive 
Acts of Parliament, and the machinery they created, " for 
the purpose," as old Lord Ardmore was fond of fulminating, 
of " pillaging loyal Peter in order to pamper rebel Paul ! '* 
The opinion of very old, and intolerant, and indignant peers 
cannot always be taken seriously, but it is surely permissible 
to feel a regret for kindly, improvident Dick Talbot-Lowry, 
his youth and his income departing together, and the civic 
powers that he had once exercised, reft from him. Such 
power as he had had, he had exercised honourably and with 
reverent confidence in precedent, and when he had damned 
Parnell, and had asserted, in stentorian tones, that Cromwell 
was the only man who had ever known how to govern Ireland, 
and he, unfortunately, was now in hell ; where, the Major 
would add, he was probably better off, his contribution to 
constructive politics had ended. He and his generation, 
reactionaries almost to a man, instead of attempting to ride 
the waves of the rising tide, subscribed their guineas to 
construct breakwaters that were pathetic in their futility. 
Gallant in resistance, barren in expedient, history may con- 
demn the folly of the Old Guard of the " English Garrison,* 
but it cannot deny, even though it may deride, its fidelity. 



CHAPTER XX 

Lady Isabel Talbot-Lowry had invited what is concisely 
spoken of as " people " to tea and tennis. The month was 
June, but the weather was March, or at best, a sullen and over- 
cast April, The purport of the entertainment had been the 
exhibition, to rival amateurs, of the Mount Music herbaceous 
borders, which, though " not looking quite their best," were 
as nearly approximating to that never-achieved ideal, as is 
ever the case with either gardens or children ; but showers of 
chill rain had marred the display, and the lawn tennis was 
fitful, and subject to frequent interruption. In these circum- 
stances, a fire of turf and logs did not need apologies for its 
presence, and Lady Isabel and her companion Heads of 
Households sat with it as their focal point, and thought, as 
they saw the players flitting to and fro between the showers, 
and the house, and the lawn tennis grounds, that middle age 
had privileges that were not to be despised. 

The long and lofty drawing-room of Mount Music was a 
pleasant place enough, even on this showery day. Some 
five or six generations of Talbot-Lowrys had lived in it, and 
left their marks on it, and though the indelible hand of 
Victoria, in youthful vigour, had had, perhaps, the most 
perceptible influence on it as a whole, the fancies and fashions 
of Major Dick's great-grandmother still held their places. 
An ottoman, huge as a merry-go-round at a fair, immovable 
as an island, occupied, immutably, the space in the centre 
of the room immediately under a great cut-glass chandelier. 
Facing it was the fireplace, an affair of complicated design, 
with " Nelson ropes " and knobs, and coils, in worked and 
twisted brass, and deep hobs, in whose construction the needs 
of a punch-kettle had not been forgotten. Above it, a high, 
delicately-inlaid marble mantelpiece, brought from Italy by 
Dick's great-grandfather, was surmounted by a narrow ledge 

141 



142 MOUNT MUSIC 

of marble, just wide enough to support the base of a Georgian 
mirror of flamboyant design, in whose dulled and blueish 
depths were reflected the row of old white china birds, that 
were seated, each on its own rock, on the shelf in front of it. 
Family portraits in frames whose charm of design and colour 
made atonement for the indifference of the painting, alternated 
with brown landscapes in which castles, bridges, and 
impenetrable groves were dimly to be discovered through 
veils of varnish ; flotillas of miniatures had settled, like 
groups of flies, wherever on the crowded walls foothold 
could be found, and water-colours, pencil-drawings, and 
photographs, filled any remaining space. There were long 
and implacable sofas, each with its conventional sofa- 
table in front of it ; Empire consoles, with pieces of china 
incredibly diverse in style, beauty, and value, jostling each 
other on the marble slabs ; woolwork screens, worked by 
forgotten aunts and grandmothers, chairs of every known 
breed, and tables, tables everywhere, and not a corner on 
one of them on which anything more could be deposited. 
The claims of literature were acknowledged, but without 
enthusiasm. A tall, glass-fronted cupboard, inaccessibly 
placed behind the elongated tail of an early grand piano, 
was filled with ornate miniature editions of the classics, that 
would have defied an effort — had such ever been made — 
to remove them from their shelves, whereon they had 
apparently been bedded in cement, like mosaic. It was a 
room that, in its bewildering diversity, might have broken 
the hearts of housemaids or decorators ; untidy, without 
plan, with rubbish contending successfully with museum- 
pieces, with the past and present struggling in their eternal 
rivalry ; yet, a human place, a place full of the magnetism that 
is born of past happiness, a place to which all its successive 
generations of sons and daughters looked back with that 
softening of the heart that comes, when in, perhaps, a far- 
away country, memories of youth return, and with them the 
thought of home. 

The ladies who, constant to the saner pleasures of conversa- 
tion and tea, had disposed themselves round and about 
Lady Isabel's tea-table, were of the inner circle of the friends 
of the house, and owned, as is usually the case where habits 
and environment are practically identical, a common point 



MOUNT MUSIC 143 

of view, and no more diversity of opinion than is enough to 
. stimulate conversation. Such of them as had compelled 
husbands or sons to accompany them, had shaken them off 
at the lawn tennis ground, and though loud cawings from 
the hall indicated that certain of the more elderly males had 
congregated there, the ladies in the drawing-room had, so 
far, been " unmolested by either the young people or the men." 

Thus, Miss Frederica Coppinger phrased it to those of 
her allies with whom she was now holding sweet communion. 
The allies, albeit separated by intervals of from five to ten 
miles of rough and often hilly road, met with sufficient 
frequency to keep touch, yet not often enough to crush the 
ultimate fragrance from the flower of gossip. Their most 
recent meeting had taken place at the concert, which had been 
Larry's last achievement before his return to Oxford, and 
although they had not been oppressively hampered by the 
convention of silence at such entertainments, conversation 
had been necessarily somewhat thwarted. 

" They made quite a useful little sum at Larry's concert," 
said Frederica. " Local charities — which meant the Fowl 
Fund, of course — and Mr. Cotton and Father Greer. Dick 
said he would not support it if his old women were not 
helped — abominable cheats though most of them are ! " 

" I feel for them ! " said Mrs. Kirby, intensely. *' No 
one knows the misery and the beggary inflicted on me by the 
foxes that Bill encourages about the place ! " 

A sympathetic imagination enabled her friends to realise 
the misery and beggary which Mrs. Kirby's exceedingly 
cheerful and prosperous appearance concealed. Both 
groaned appropriately, and Miss Coppinger made the sweep- 
ing statement that she detested hunting in all its ramifications. 
*' We are always told that its great merit is that it brings all 
classes together," she continued. '' In my opinion that is 
a very dubious advantage, if, indeed, it is not a drawback ! " 

Mrs. Kirby permitted her glance to commune for a brief 
instant with that of the third lady, Mrs. St. George. 

" Like mixed concerts ! " said Mrs. St. George, in a deep 
and awful voice. 

" Mixed pickles ! " murmured Mrs. Kirby, and chuckled 
at her jest. 

Miss Frederica flushed. 



144 MOUNT MUSIC 



(< 



My dear Louisa," she said, resentfully, " I am perfectly 
aware of their disadvantages, but I should be obliged to you 
if you would tell me what I am to do ! It is the difference in 
religion that makes me powerless. Powerless ! " she repeated 
looking almost with triumph upon her companions, so irrefut- 
able was her case. 

*' I hope I'm not a bigot," said Mrs. St. George 
impressively ; ** but I thank God I'm not a Roman 
Cathohc ! " 

** * Not as other men are ' ! " quoted Miss Coppinger, 
with some acidity. Even though she agreed with the senti- 
ment, she could not forget that Larry was her nephew. 

*' Oh, it isn't the actual religion I was thinking of," said 
Mrs. St. George, rather hurriedly, Larry's disadvantages 
having temporarily escaped her memory. ** It was rather — 
well " 

" For boys it doesn't matter so much," broke in Mrs. 
Kirby, " but I really did dislike seeing Christian on the plat- 
form with that party ! " 

'* She was only playing accompaniments," said Miss 
Coppinger, still resentful. 

*' That only made it worse ! If she had sung a solo it 
would have been less humiliating," replied Mrs. Kirby, 
with a masterly change of front. ** I was indignant ! 
Christian, with her charming voice, only playing accompani- 
ments and singing in the glees, and that unendurable Mangan 
girl posing as the Prima Donna, and oh ! her clotjies ! " 

*' Or her want of them ! " interposed Mrs. St. George, on 
a profound bass note. 

" And her songs I I don't profess to know much about 
music, but I do know what 1 like ! " continued Mrs. Kirby, 
with the finality and decision that usually accompany this 
admission. " People may tell me she has a fine voice, but I 
detest enormous contralto voices ! What I suffered during 
the last thing she sang as an encore ! And that final yell 
of * Asthore ' ! — at least an octave above her voice ! I could 
only think of the bellow of the cow that jumped over the 
moon ! " 

" What made me indignant," said Mrs. St. George, in 
emulous depreciation, ignoring this flight of fancy, " was 
their not having * God save the King ' ! A cowardly conces- 



MOUNT MUSIC 145 

slon to the Gaelic League, of course ! I really think that 
Georgy, who is in the Navy, might have insisted upon it ! " 

** They did discuss it," said Frederica, forced by her friends 
into the position of devil's advocate, ** but they were afraid 
of the sixpenny seats. The Mangans said that there would 
inevitably be rows. They have nad to give up having it 
at anything now." 

This was unanswerable, and Mrs. St. George tacitly 
accepted defeat. 

** I believe that young Mangan is simply a Rebel, ^^ resumed 
Mrs. Kirby, portentously. ** Bill thinks he'll go too far 
some day, and the police will have to take notice of him. 
But with the Government yielding and pandering " 

Here, at least, was a subject on which all three disputants 
were in complete agreement. Wolfe Tone or Robert Emmet 
could hardly have abhorred the Government of England 
more heartily than did these three respectable, law-abiding, 
unalterably-Unionist ladies, and for some time the more recent 
enormities of the rule upon which they theoretically bestowed 
their unshakable allegiance, took precedence of Miss Mangan 
as a subject of disapproval. 

*' Nevertheless," summed up Mrs. St. George, gloomily, 
at the end of a sweeping condemnation, *' we must submit. 
We can do nothing. As Courtney sa3'S, we can't cut off 
cows' tails and shoot our tenants for not paying their rent ! 
He says " 

Colonel St.Xjeorge's further views were lost in the entrance 
of the lawn tennis players, rain-sprinkled, heated, bringing 
with them a lively aroma of trodden grass and wet flannel, 
and convinced of their superiority to those who had sought 
shelter, and were now (to quote Miss Talbot-Lowry) soddenly 
eating all the hot cakes. Judith had recently returned from 
one of her forays, and had not spared her family her views 
on the rapprochement with the musical world of Cluhir 
that the concert had involved. She was now seated with Bill 
Kirby on a secluded sofa in a corner of the long drawing- 
room, and was entertaining that deeply-enamoured young 
man with her accustomed fluency. 

Mr. Kirby, having petted and patronised Judith in her 
youth, when he was still nine years older than she, had, since her 
recent return, awakened to the fact that this difference in age 

K 



146 MOUNT MUSIC 

had been mysteriously obliterated, and that at present, 
Judith was not only his superior in intelligence, but also in 
all those subsidiary matters in which age is generally and 
erroneously believed to confer an advantage. 

*' If it had even been a good concert," Judith remarked, 
gobbling tea and cake with a heartiness that, taken in con- 
nection with an admirable complexion and very clear blue 
eyes> was in itself attractive to a hungry young man, "I could 
have borne it better. But it was absolutely deadly — all but 
just our own people's turns, of course — a sort of lyrical 
geography — the map of Ireland set to music ! Bantry Bay, 
Killarney, the Mountains of Somewhere, the Waters of 
Somewhere else, all Irish, of course ! I get so sick of Ireland 
and her endearing young charms — and all the entreaties to 
Erin to remember ! As if she ever forgot ! " 

*' She remembers her enemies, all right," rejoined Bill 
Kirby, gloomily, " but she forgets her friends ! I know 
someone who hasn't got any enemies to remember, but she's 
just like Ireland in one way ! " 

** What way ? " demanded Judith, "and who do you 
mean ? " 

** You know very well who I mean ! And the reason she's 
like Ireland is that she forgets her friends ! People who used 
to give her leads out hunting when she was a little girl, 
and never forgot her I " 

" In the first place, I deny it, and in the second place, it 
serves them right if she does forget them" replied Judith 
tranquilly ; "I don't know the injured beings you refer to, 
but I do know my own family. I take my eye off them for 
five minutes, and I come home to find they have not only 
forgotten my existence, but they have plunged into the heart 
of that appalling Cluhir crowd, and are indignant with me — 
at least the boys and papa are — because I don't do the 
same ! Strange as it may appear, / like nice people ! " 

*' I wasn't talking of your family," said Bill Kirby, morosely, 
*' Hang it all ! Fm quite a nice person, and / haven't plunged 
into the heart of Cluhir, but it's only by a sort of accident, 
like this, that you will ever say a word to me ! " 

'' You'd better insure against accidents of this kind ! " 
said Judith, who was frankly enjoying herself ; '* and if you 
choose to renounce the charms of Cluhir, vou needn't make a 



MOUNT MUSIC 147 

virtue of it ! Perhaps they don't want you ! They mayn't 
reaHse what a nice person you are ! Would you hke me to 

explain to Tishy Mangan " 

Bill Kirby, who was possessed of good brown eyes and a 
profile like a handsome battle-axe, was a young man of no 
special intellectual gifts, but the sound judgment that dis- 
tinguished him in the hunting-field was wont to stand his 
friend in other emergencies. He was entirely aware that he 
was no match for Judith in debate, but he was also aware 
that deeds sometimes speak louder than words. He attempted 
no spoken reply, but after a wary glance round the room, 
he permitted his large, brown hand to descend upon and 
envelop Judith's, that rested on the sofa beside him. 

" You know you're talking rot," he murmured, cautiously, 
** No, don't struggle. If you say things like that, you've 
got to be punished. Are you sorry ? " 

" Not in the least ! " replied Judith, with an equal caution ; 
"but you will be, soon ! Mrs. St. George is looking at you !" 
The battle-axe profile of Mr. Kirby betrayed no hint of 
the situation. 

" Keep quiet, and say you're sorry ! / don't mind sitting 
here all the afternoon — like this," he added, with a slight 
additional pressure. 

'* I shall count three," said Judith suavely, *' and then I 
shall ask you in a loud, clear voice to get me another cup ot 

tea. One " 

Further developments of the situation need not be 
attempted, the more so as at this juncture the entrance of 
two uninvited guests caused a redistribution of seats, whose 
most marked feature was the creation of a desert space round 
the new arrivals and their hostess. 

It would perhaps be irregular to say that the Reverend 
Matthew and Mrs. Cotton were the incumbents of the parish 
church of Cluhir (and had been profanely described as *' the 
incumbrance of Cluhir ?') ; even to speak of them as, 
respectively, its curate and its rector, might, though more 
accurate, be, perhaps, considered flippant. It would also 
be open to the reproach of lack of originality. Yet, 
unoriginal though the dominant clergywoman of fiction may 
be, it cannot be denied that St. Paul's injunctions in connec- 
tion with the subjection of wives did not commend themselves 



148 MOUNT MUSIC 

to Mrs. Cotton. It may be, indeed, that her views on 
matrimony, being more instructed, were sounder than those 
of St. Paul, and she could at least argue that had he been 
acquainted with Mr. Cotton he might have modified them. 
In any case, whatever St. Paul might think about it, Mrs. 
Cotton was quite sure that she was better fitted than was her 
husband to deal with the matter that had brought them to 
Mount Music. 

She did not, however, as becomes a sound tactician, 
approach the point with undue directness. Lady Isabel 
had sent her daughters to school in Paris ; Lady Isabel had, 
on a bygone occasion, been goaded by Mrs. Cotton into a 
declaration that her servants' religion was a matter with which 
she only concerned herself if they neglected their religious 
duties. Mrs. Cotton, remembering these things, and being 
ever filled to brimming with what Christian had called The 
Spirit of the Nation, opened with a general attack upon the 
Church of Rome, and narrowed to a tale of *' a friend of mine 
and Mr. Cotton's. A clergyman. A man of private means." 
After this stimulating prelude, the tale ceased for a moment, 
while Mrs. Cotton blinked her small black eyes at her hostess, 
several times, as was her practice. " Oh a very wealthy 
man ! " she continued, imposingly, '* and he bought a lovely 
house, with a garden ; a lovely garden ! " The thought of 
a garden was a fortunate one, and enlisted Lady Isabel's 
wandering attention. '* But at the end of the garden what was 
there but a Nunnery ! And the clergyman found that his 
daughters were always slipping out into the garden, and what 
w^as it but the nuns, that were getting hold of the girls ! 
Very refined women they were, and well able to deceive young 
girls ! " The tale was flowing swiftly now, but Mrs. Cotton 
paused dramatically, and continued on a lower key. *' The 
clergyman had had bookshelves made to fit the study, and a 

splendid antique sideboard to fitanitch " Mrs. Cotton 

spoke fast, and the last three words ran bewilderingly into 
one. " But he sold the house at onxe ! Yes, indeed. Lady 
Isabel ! Weren't his daughters' souls more to him than 
bookshelves : " 

Lady Isabel, who was still wrestling with the apparently 
Russian problem in connection with the antique sideboard, 
attempted no reply to this inquir}-, and Mrs. Cotton, con- 



MOUNT MUSIC 149 

sidering that her hostess' mind was now sufficiently prepared, 
did not wait for her opinion, and swept on to her objective, 
which was the denunciation of the conduct of the recent 
concert, and more especially of the disposition of the proceeds. 
*' Of course, / don't know in whose hands it lay, Lady Isabel,'* 
she said, raising her tea cup to her lips, and in order to do so 
curtaining it behind her ample veil, " but the Roman Catholics 
seemed to consider that it was all to go to them, and the paltry 
sum I have mentioned was all they gave Mr. Cotton and me 
for our charities ! " Her black eyes snapped menacingly at 
Lady Isabel over the rim of the veiled tea cup. 

Lady Isabel uttered a soothing and indefinite murmur, 
and the indictment proceeded. 

** Considering that >'o«r family. Lady Isabel, took a leading 
part in the programme, and that I may say the greater number 
of the half-crown seats were Protestants, I do think that our 
Church " 

It avails not to follow Mrs. Cotton's diatribes further. 
Lady Isabel had lived for some five and twenty years in 
Ireland, but they had not sufficed to expound to her the in- 
tricacies of the web of jealousies, hatreds, fears, and stupidities, 
that has been spun by that intolerant Spirit of the Nation, 
in order to separate, as far as may be, the two Churches 
who divide the kindly people of the Island of Saints between 
them. Lady Isabel might see that in the distribution of the 
spoils Mrs. Cotton had possibly a lawful grievance, but she 
could not, even after five and twenty years, quite under- 
stand how solacing to the soul of ^Irs. Cotton was the 
consideration of the wrongs endured by her Church. 

" Yes, indeed. Lady Isabel ! Not one penny more ! And 
then Dr. Mangan to say to Mr. Cotton when I sent him to 
complain about it, that it was better than a poke in the eye 
with a blunt stick ! That was by the way of making a joke 
of it ! And that the Hunt wanted it more than we did ! I 
wonder how much Father Greer left the Hunt! " 

Again Mrs. Cotton's beady eyes snapped several times, 
in an emotion that was not far from enjoyment. The 
iniquities of Father Greer were very dear to her, and she was 
confident that in this matter of dividing the spoil he had not 
disappointed her. 

Passing on from the concert, Mrs. Cotton dealt with many 



150 MOUNT MUSIC 

subjects in a harangue that turned the seamy side of Cluhir 
to the sun, with the skill of a buyer of old clothes. Lady 
Isabel, behind the prisoning tea-table, after a hopeless, 
helpless glance round an assembly that was either preoccupied, 
or wilfully blind, relapsed into the brain stupor that was some- 
times sent, like an anodyne, to those whom fate had con- 
signed to Mrs. Cotton's keeping. The Reverend Matthew, 
in whom a prolonged course of his wife had developed a 
condition, when in her society, of semi-hypnotic trance, sat 
in silence at his hostess' side, devouring cake, and swallowing 
cups of tea, until what had apparently been starvation was 
averted ; he then dreamily withdrew, and joined himself, 
vaguely, to the group of which Miss Coppinger formed one. 
Frederica's early training had, as has been said, implanted in 
her an ineradicable interest in the Church. Even the dulled, 
almost obliterated personality of Mr. Cotton still held for 
her some of the magic of his cloth. She moved her chair to 
admit him to the fellowship of which she was one, and offered 
him the seat that had been hastily vacated by Mrs. Kirby on 
his approach, with a darkling eye of reproof at that experienced 
lady. 

Conversation with Mr. Cotton resembled conversation 
with his wife, in that it was apt to be one-sided, life having 
taught him to take the side not patronised by Mrs. Cotton. 
When, however, severed from her, he was capable of imparting 
rudimentary fragments of fact, and one of these he now offered 
to Miss Coppinger. 

*' I hear your nephew is the candidate chosen by the 
Nationalists here for the next election. Miss Coppinger," 
he said, his pale eyes regarding her drearily over the top of 
his spectacles. 

Frederica sat erect in her chair with a jerk, and a hot red 
sprang, like a danger-signal, to her face. 

" I've heard nothing of it," she said stoutly, but with a 
leaping heart of horror. *' How do you know it is the case ? " 

** It is commonly reported in the town," replied Mr. 
Cotton. ** One hears these things " 

" I can't believe it — I can't believe it," said Frederica ; 
the colour had left her cheeks, and her eyes hurried from Mr. 
Cotton's face to Mrs. St. George's, and roved on to Mrs. 



MOUNT MUSIC 151 

Kirby, who was seated near, and had evidently felt the wind 
of the shot. 

*' Why, the boy is only just twenty-one ! " said Mrs. 
Kirby, rolling herself and her chair back into action to the 
support of her friend. *' With all deference to you, Mr. 
Cotton, I don't believe a word of it ! Of course, Larry 
would have told you, Frederica ! I can well believe that 
those Gaelic League people would like to have him if they can 
get him ! Depend upon it, the wish is father to the 
thought ! " 

Frederica made no reply ; her lips were tightly compressed, 
and her unseeing eyes, though they appeared to be fixed on 
Mrs. Kirby 's broad and friendly face, were looking along the 
paths of memory to the time w^hen that barrier of ice had not 
arisen between her and Larry. 

*' I understand that the suggestion emanated from Dr. 
Mangan," went on Mr. Cotton, faintly stimulated by his 
unaccustomed success. *' I am not aware if young Mr. 
Coppinger has made any reply." 

Mrs. Kirby put her plump white hand on Frederica's 
narrow knee. " I shouldn't distress myself if I were you, 
my dear," she said in a low voice. *' Quite possibly it's all 
a mistake " She turned to Mr. Cotton, who was relaps- 
ing into trance ; his eyes had followed the movement of her 
hand, and were being held, hypnotically, by the sparkle of 
the diamonds in her rings. *' At all events," went on Mrs. 
Kirby, "a general election now is very unlikely, and our valued 
member — upon my word, I don't even remember his name ! — 
isn't likely to resign in Larry's favour, so we needn't discuss 
it now ! I am sure, Mr. Cotton, that you will agree with 
me, that the less said about it the better ; m.ost probably 
the whole thing will die out and come to nothing ! " She 
glanced at Mrs. St. George, and perceiving that the news 
had shattered her in only less degree than Frederica, she 
continued to address Mr. Cotton. " Such weather ! Isn't 
it } How does your garden like all this rain, Mr. Cotton ? 

Our strawberries won't ripen, and as for the poor hay ! 

You really ought to have prayers for fine weather for us next 
Sunday! " 

Mr. Cotton recalled his eyes from the diamonds with an 
effort. '' I will, if you like, Mrs. Kirby ! " he said, looking at 



152 MOUNT MUSIC 

her, like an old horse, down his long, deplorable nose, " but 
I fear they will be not of much use, as the glawss is remorkably 
low !" 

Prayers for the modification of the weather are often treated 
as a permissible subject for mirth, and Mrs. Kirby availed 
herself of the convention ; even Frederica and Mrs. St. 
George, stricken though they were, smiled wanly. 



CHAPTER XXI 

At about this time, that imposing spectacle, once described 
by Mrs. Twomey as ** The Big Doctor and Httle Danny 
Aherne walking the streets of Cluhir like two paycocks," 
was vouchsafed to the town rather more frequently than was 
usually the case. Dr. Aherne had sent a patient, who was 
no less a person than the priest of the parish of Pribawn, 
to the private ward of the Infirmary in Cluhir, where he would, 
among other advantages, receive daily visits from Dr. Mangan. 
Father Sweeny was suffering from a broken leg, and other 
damages ; a midnight drive to a dying parishioner had 
ended, disastrously, in an unguarded road-side ditch, and Dr. 
Aherne had thought it best to consign a patient of such 
importance to the care of hands less occupied, as well as of 
higher renown, than his own. 

Thus it was that the Big Doctor and his kinsman saw 
more of each other than is often possible for men whose work 
is as widespread and incessant as is that of Irish Dispensary 
Doctors. On this windy June morning they had met in 
the dreary yard of the Workhouse, to which the Infirmary was 
attached, and together they paced the long, whitewashed, 
slate-paven passages that led to the Infirmary, pausing at 
intervals to talk of matters quite unconnected with their 
patients, but, if the frequency of the pauses, filled by the 
sibilant whispers of the little doctor, and the deep growls 
of the big one, was any criterion, none the less absorbing. 

** His name's been accepted," ended the Big Doctor, after 
the lengthiest of these, '* and it would be no harm for you to 
be slipping in a word, now and again, with the people through 
the country, according as you'd get the chance, Danny." 

*' I will, I will," replied the little doctor, as he opened the 
door of Father Sweeny's room. 

*' You're doing very well. Father," said Dr. Mangan, his 

153 



(c 



154 MOUNT MUSIC 

inspection of the patient ended. *' I consider you could'nt 
be progressing more satisfactorily." He seated himself by 
Father Tim Sweeny's bedside, while the Nursing Sister-in- 
Charge rolled up bandages, and conferred in lowered tones 
with Dr. Aherne, on the subject of what he called the 
patient's " dite." 

" You'll be going as strong as ever you did in a few weeks' 
time," continued Dr. Mangan, encouragingly. 

Father Sweeny returned the Doctor's look morosely. 
I'm sick and tired of being here as it is," he said, gloomily, 

and you talk to me of weeks ! " 

" Ah, they'll pass, neve/ fear they'll pass ! " said the Big 
Doctor, cheerfully. " I never saw the weeks yet that didn't 
pass if you waited long enough ! And I wouldn't say but 
that you mightn't go home before you're out of our hands 
entirely." 

Father Sweeny received these consolations with an unpro- 
pitiated grunt. His large face, with its broad cheeks and 
heavy double-chins, that was usually of a sanguine and all 
pervasive beefy-red, now hung in pallid purple folds, on 
which dark bristles, that were as stiff as those on the barrel 
of a musical box, told that the luxury of shaving had hitherto 
been withheld. There are some professions that tend more 
than others to grade the men that follow them into distinct 
types. The Sea is one of these, the Church, and pre-eminently 
the Church of Rome, is another. The ecclesiastical types 
vary no less than the nautical ones, and neither need here be 
enumerated. It is sufficient to say that Father Sweeny, 
when in his usual robust health, in voice, in appearance, 
and in manner, provoked, uncontrollably, a comparison 
with a heavy and truculent black bull. 

*' 'Tis highly inconvenient to me to be boxed up in bed 
this way, at this time," said Father Sweeny, with a small hot 
eye upon his attendant nun that would have said instantly 
to any one less entirely kind, religious, and painstaking, 
that he had no immediate need of her services ; '* Sister 
Maria Joseph, I wonder would you be so kind as to bring me 
the paper ? I didn't see it to-day at all." 

Sister Maria Joseph turned her amiable, unruffled face, 
with that pure complexion that would seem to be one of the 



MOUNT MUSIC 155 

compensations for the renunciation of the world, towards 
her patient, and said, obsequiously : 

*' I beg your pordon, Fawther ?" 

The little eyes had a hotter sparkle as Father Sweeny 
repeated his request. 

" It's a wonder to me," he growled to Dr. Mangan, after 
Sister Maria Joseph had left the room, having taken, in her 
anxiety to show respect, quite half a minute in closing the 
door with suitable noiselessness, ** why people can't attend 
to what's said to them ! If there's a thing I hate, it's being 

bothered repeating an entirely trivial matter, which " 

— here Father Tim's voice began to take on the angry, high 
tenor of one of his prototypes — *' she had a right to have 
heard at the first offer ! I declare I'm beside meself some- 
times with the annoyance I get ! " 

Dr. Mangan laid his spatulate fingers upon the sufferer's 
hairy wrist. 

" We'll have to give his Reverence a sedative, Danny," 
he said, winking at his colleague. " I'd be sorry to see you 
that way, Father ; the bed's narrow enough for you as it is, 
without having you beside yourself in it ! " 

Father Sweeny's mood was one to which chaff did not 
commend itself. He snatched his hand from beneath the 
Doctor's fingers, and picked up some letters that lay beside him. 

*' Look at this, I ask you ! From Mary Murphy, saying 
her husband is quite well, and that he took the turn for 
good from the minute he was anointed ! And me lying 
here crippled ! " 

'* ' The dog it was that died ! ' " quoted Dr. Mangan, 
smoothly, 

" What dog ? " demanded Father Sweeny, with indignation, 
" I d'no what you're talking about !" 

** Ah, nothing, nothing," said the Big Doctor, with a lift 
of the spirit at the thought of his superior culture, " but 
surely it wasn't to show me Mary Murphy's letter that you 
sent poor Sister Maria Joseph on a fool's errand } " 

" Why a fool's errand ? " demanded the now incensed 
Father Sweeny, " What d'ye mean } " 

" Look at the newspaper on the floor here," returned the 
Doctor. " You'll have her back in a minute, begging your 
pardon again, to tell you so." 



156 MOUNT MUSIC 

Father Sweeny glared, speechless, at his tormentor for an 
instant ; then, finding the Big Doctor unmoved " in the 
furnace of his look," he fell back on his pillows. 

" Lock the door ! " he commanded angrily. He pushed a 
letter into the Doctor's hand. ** Read that ! " 

" Hullo ! The Major ! What's he got to say to you, 
Father Tim?" 

" Read it, I tell you ! " 

Dr. Mangan did so, with attention, and read it a second 
time before he replaced it in its envelope and handed it back 
to the priest. 

" That's a nice letter ! " said Father Sweeny, with a snort 
that he believed to be a laugh. '' What d'ye think of that 
now, you that are so fond of Protestants ! " 

'* I think the man is justified," said the Doctor, stoutly. 
** There's no such great hurry, and anyhow, his authority is 
at an end. He couldn't give you as much as'd sod a lark 



now " 



Nor he wouldn't if he could ! " broke in Father Sweeny. 

And there is hurry, and great hurry ! How will I build 
my chapel without the land to put it on ? Will you tell me 
that .? " 

*' Ah, you haven't the money gathered yet. The delay 
isn't worth exciting yourself about ! " said the Doctor, 
soothingly. Father Tim amused him, and he liked him, 
being well aware that if his temper was hot, his heart was 
correspondingly warm. *' You'll see the young chap will 
give you the site as soon as look at you." 

" And how do I know the young chap will be any easier 
than the old one } Isn't he there at Mount Music all day 
and every day, at their tea-parties and their dinner-parties ? 
Won't they have him married up to one of the daughters 
before you can look around } He may call himself a CathoHc, 
but them English Catholics — come in !" 

Sister Maria Joseph's faint tap at the door had as instant 
an effect as a squib, planted in the mane of the monarch of 
the bull-ring, might produce. 

'T cannt — the door's locked, Fawther ! " came Sister Maria 
Joseph's gentle voice, in mild protest. " I couldn't find 
the " 



MOUNT MUSIC 157 

" Never mind it ! I have it myself — I have it, I tell you ! '* 
shouted Father Tim ; in his voice the appeal to a merciful 
Heaven to grant patience was unmistakeable. 

Sister Maria Joseph, recognising with trembling her 
superfluousness, withdrew. 

*' It's Barty will have that job we were speaking of just 
now, before you were coaxing Sister Maria Joseph to go away 
from you," resumed Dr. Mangan. " Maybe you didn't 
hear he's got the Coppinger's Court Agency ? Young 
Coppinger offered it to him yesterday." 

" It's a good thing it's out of Talbot-Lowry's hands any- 
how," growled Father Sweeny. 

" Larry's up at my house every day now, about a concert 
they're to have," went on the Doctor, tranquilly. *' Tishy's 
helping him. He's very fond of music. I think you're 
mistaken in thinking he'll be married to one of the Major's, 
daughters in such a hurr\^ ! " 

" The first thing he'll want to do is to tidy up his property 
and pacify the tenants," said Dr. Aherne, in his small, piping^ 
voice. " They're not too pleased with the way they are now. 
The Major was rather short with some of them, now and 
again. There was Herlihy, and two of the Briens, was talking 
to me and saying what would they do at all with Father Tim 
here, away. They were thinking would Father Hogan '* 

" Br-r-r-r-r-h ! " 

As a bull shakes his head, with a reverberating roar at 
the foes he cannot reach, so did Father Tim Sweeny, crippled 
and furious, roll his big head, growHng, on his pillows. His. 
dark hair lay in tight rings on his broad and bulging forehead, 
and curled in strength over his head back to the tonsure. 
His eyes were congested with the unavailing rage that 
possessed him, as he thought of his parish left leaderless. 

Had the " Ballad of the Bull " then been written, and had 
Dr. Mangan been acquainted with it (which seems unlikely) 
he might have again proved his culture by remembering 
the injunction to pity *' this fallen chief," as he saw the 
impotent wrath in Father Tim's bovine countenance. 

" Don't worry yourself now. Father," he said, consolingly, 
" I'll undertake to say it will be all right about the site for 
the chapel, and what's more, I'll undertake to say there'll 
be nothing done about it, or the tenants, or anything else> 



158 MOUNT MUSIC 

till you're well. The people will do nothing without you ! *' 

He looked at his huge, old-fashioned gold watch. 

*' Oh, b' Jove, I must be off ! Tell me, did you hear they 
have Larry Coppinger chosen to be the candidate, when 
Prendergast retires, as he says he will, before the next election ? 
There won't be much talk of tea-parties for Larry at Mount 
Music then ! Any tea-party there that he'd go to once he 
was a Nationalist M.P., I think he'd be apt to get ' his tay 
in a mug ! ' " 

The Doctor got up and moved towards the door. 

" I'll support him, so ! " Father Sweeny called after him. 



CHAPTER XXII 

There are families, as there are nations, that are hke those 
ships that, launched under a lucky star, sail their appointed 
courses ever serenely and eventlessly, and though they may 
indeed look on tempests, yet are never shaken by them. 
But of such was not, it must regretfully be said, the family 
of Talbot-Lowry. It can only be supposed that the gods 
had preordained its destruction, for on no other assumption 
can the dementia of its chief representative be comprehended. 
It would be out of place, even, if not impertinent, absurd, 
to discuss here the Act of Parliament that in the year nineteen 
hundred and three, made provision to change the ownership 
of Irish land, and to transfer its possession from the landlords 
to the tenants. It is sufficient to say that those of both classes 
who were endowed with the valuable quality of knowing on 
which side of a piece of bread the butter had been applied, 
lost as little time as was possible in availing themselves of 
the facilities that the Act offered them. The ceremony of 
Hari Kiri, even if entered upon with the belief that it will 
lead to another and a better world, is not an agreeable one, 
but it was obvious to most Irish landlords that, with bad or 
good grace, sooner or later, that grim rite had to be faced, 
and that the hindmost in the transaction need expect only 
the fate proverbially promised to such. It is, possibly, 
superfluous to say that of the company of the hindmost was 
our poor friend, well-meaning and stupid Dick Talbot- 
Lowry, and also that his fate, as such, was sedulously pointed 
out to him by those friends of his own class, who, like the 
fabled fox, having lost their brushes, were eager in explanation 
of the superiority of their position. 

" I don't own a stick outside my own'^demiesne wall ! " 
says Colonel St. George. " Of all the hundreds of acres of 
mountain that my father had, there isn't as much as one patch 
of bog left that I could cut a sod of turf in ! " 

159 



i6o MOUNT MUSIC 

This whisk of a vanished brush was a gesture well calculated 
to enrage Major Dick. It was senseless of St. George to 
boast of his limitations, and yet no one better than Dick knew 
what must be the feeling of emancipation that prompted the 
boast. 

Autocracy dies hard, and it is probable that long after 
Leagues of Nations have decreed the abolition of all Rulers, 
the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table will still, in the most 
inveterate Republics, issue, unquestioned, his unalterable 
edicts, with his coat-tails monopolising the dining-room fire, 
and the family income concentrated in his cheque book. 
Dick Talbot-Lowry's pigheadedness was at the root of the 
downsliding of Mount Music. Having faced, undaunted, 
deputations of his tenants ; deputations of public bodies ; 
('* damned interfering blackguards, who ought to be taught 
to mind their own business ! "), having made light of advice 
from his friends, and of anonymous threatening letters from, 
presumably, his enemies, he still held fast, and refused to sell 
the property that had come to him from the men whose 
portraits had looked down on him from the old walls of 
Mount Music, all the days of his life. It was, perhaps, 
the solitary strand of romance in his nature, the feudal feeling 
that the Mount Music tenants were his, as they had been his 
ancestors', to have and to hold, to rule, to arbitrate for, and 
to stand by, as a fond and despotic husband rules and stands 
by an obedient wife, loving her and bullying her (but both 
entirely for her good). He had, moreover, the desire to 
disparage and to disprove new ideas, that is a sign of a mind 
incapable of originality, and anxious to assert itself 
negatively, since it must otherwise remain silent. 

*' But Dick," his friends would say, '* there isn't a property 
this side of the county that isn't sold, except your own ! " 

" What's that to me } " says Dick, as stubborn and stupid 
a King Canute as ever sat with the tide nearing the tops of 
his hunting-boots ; " I don't care a damn what anybody 
else does ! And what's more " he would add, gloomily,*' / 
can't afford to sell at seventeen years' purchase. Anyhow, 
what's mine's my own ! I'll be shot if I'll be buUied ! " 

*' I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were ! " the friends 
would reply darkly. 

To sell at seventeen years' purchase, was what Mr. St. 



MOUNT MUSIC i6i 

Lawrence Coppinger had done, following the advice of his 
agent and solicitor, Mr. Bartholomew Mangan, and his cousin, 
and late guardian, Major Talbot-Lowr}% had found it hard to 
forgive him. The business had been arranged while Larry 
was in Paris, and the expostulations that might have prevailed 
if delivered viva voce^ failed of their effect when presented on 
foreign paper, in Cousin Dick's illegible scrawl. It was all 
very fine for Larry, ran the illegible scrawl, to talk of selling 
at such a price, but he ought to see what a hole his 
doing so put his neighbours in ! Larry hadn't a squad of 
incumbrances, and charges, and mortgages, hung round his 
neck like leeches (and no fault of the Major's). He had had 
to find money in a hurry to pay off one of these cursed things 
only the other day, and if he hadn't had the luck to mention 
it to a friend, who was kind enough to come to the rescue 
(of course on good security) the Major would have been in 
a hat, or a hole, Larry couldn't quite read w^hich. 

These grievances, and much more, illegibly scrawled on 
foreign paper, with a quill pen. Larry, swallowed up in 
the absorbing, isolating life of a Paris studio, would put the 
letters, half-read, in his pocket, and would immediately 
forget all about them. After all, he couldn't interfere with 
Barty ; he was the man at the helm, and mustn't be talked 
to. Also, it was idiotic to keep a dog and bark yourself. 
Proverbial philosophy is a recognised sedative ; Larry gave 
himself a dose or two, and straightway forgot Cousin 
Dick, forgot Ireland, forgot even that gratifying nomination 
of himself as Nationalist candidate for the Division, and 
plunged back into the burning atmosphere of art, wherein 
models and professors, cliques and cabals, glow, and seethe, 
and exist intensely, and with as little reference to the affairs 
of the outside world, as if they were the sole occupants of a 
distant and much over-heated star. 

There are many people who have been endowed with one 
master-passion, that '* like Aaron's serpent swallows up the 
rest," but Larry's ingenuous breast harboured a nest of 
such serpents. During his three years at Oxford, he had 
stormed from one enthusiasm to another ; he had rowed, 
and boxed, and spouted poHtics, and, beginning with music, 
had stormed on through poetry and the drama, to painting. 

Having taken a moderate degree, he had rushed in pursuit 



1 62 MOUNT MUSIC 

of this latest charmer to Paris, and the waters of the Quartier 
Latin then closed over him. Occasionally a bubble would 
rise from those clouded deeps, and a letter to Aunt Freddy, 
or to Barty Mangan, would briefly announce his continued 
existence. Sometimes he wrote to Christian, and would 
expand a little more to her ; telling her of how one 
Professor had remarked of his work that it was now presque 
pas mal, and that this dizzying encomium had encouraged him 
to begin a Salon (its subject described at length, with elucidat- 
ory sketches) ; further, that he had taken a very jolly atelier^ 
and ** dear old Chose " was " on the Jury," and would try 
and get him accepted, with much more to the same effect, 
music, politics, horses and hounds, forgotten as though 
they had never been. 

Christian received these effusions with a characteristic 
mixture of respect for the artistic effort that they described, 
and of amused, almost pitying comprehension of the enthus- 
iasm that they revealed. It was three years since Larry 
had left Oxford and gone to France, and during those years 
Christian had learned more of life than Larry had acquired, 
or would ever acquire, in spite of the three years' start of her 
with which he had begun the world. 

Judith had been induced to close her brilliant career as a 
buccaneer, by a perfectly, even — from the buccaneering 
point of view — depressingly satisfactory marriage with Mr. 
William Kirby, and her departure had forced her younger 
sister into the front rank of domestic combatants. At Mount 
Music, where once the milk and honey had flowed with 
effortless abundance, each year brought increasing stress. 
The rents grew less, the expenses greater, that large and 
omnivorous item, known as " keeping up the place," was as 
exacting as ever, the minor problems of household existence 
more acute. There had been a time when the Mount Music 
tenants had vied with one another in the provision of sons 
and daughters for service in the Big House, when bonfires 
had blazed for the return of " the young gentlemen," and 
offerings of eggs had greeted *' the young ladies." Now the pro- 
pitiatory turkey that heralded a request, the goose that 
signalised a success, gained with the help of the hereditary 
helpers, had all ceased. Alien influences had poisoned the 
wells of friendship. Such rents as were paid were extracted 



MOUNT MUSIC 163 

by the hard hand of the law, and the tenants held Indignation 
meetings against the landlord who refused to resign to them 
what they believed to be theirs, and he was equally convinced 
was his. Major Dick still shot and fished, as was his right, 
over the lands and waters that were still in his name, but 
the tenants, whose fathers had loved him, had renounced the 
old allegiance. The partridges were run down by the grey- 
hounds that had killed off the hares ; the salmon were 
poached ; worst of all, Derrylugga Gorse, the covert that 
Dick had planted twenty-five years agp, on Carmody's farm, 
in the middle of the best of the Broadwater Vale country, 
was burned down, and a vixen and her cubs had perished 
with it. 

Dick gave up the hounds at the end of the season. 

" I've done my best to show sport for five and twenty 
years," he said, " and I'm not going to spoil it now ! " 

It is impossible to deny that for Dick's wife this sacrifice 
had its consolatory aspects. It was a long time now since 
there had been quite enough money for anything at Mount 
Music. Those far-sighted guardian angels who had com- 
pelled the investment of Lady Isabel's dowry in gilt-edged 
securities, had placed the care of these in the hands of hide- 
bound English trustees (the definition is Major Dick's) and 
the amiable reader need therefore have no anxieties that 
starvation threatened this well-meaning family, but, as Lady 
Isabel frequently said, " what with the Boys, and Judith's 
trousseau, and the Wedding, and One-Thing-and-Another'* 
(which last is always a big item in the domestic budget) the 
more common needs of every day had to submit to very drastic 
condensation, and it was indisputable that the Talbot-Lowry 
family-coach was running on the down-grade. 

The law of averages is a stringent one, and it may be 
assumed with reasonable certainty, that when one ancient 
and respectable family-coach runs down hill, another vehicle, 
probably of more modern equipment, will go up. In the case 
under consideration, the operations of this principle were 
less obscure than is sometimes the way with them. As 
Mount Music descended, so did No. 6, The Mall, Cluhir, 
rise, and Dr. Mangan's growingprosperity compensated Fate 
for the decline in Major Talbot-Lowry's afi'airs, with a pre- 
cision that, to a person interested in the statistics of averages, 



i64 MOUNT MUSIC 

might have seemed beautiful. The Big Doctor was now 
the leading man in Cluhir, leader in its councils and its 
politics. On his professional side, his advice and ministra- 
tions were in demand even beyond the range of his motor car, 
and the measure of his greatness may be best estimated when 
it is mentioned that his motor had been the first to startle 
the streets of his native town. 

Major Talbot-Lowry was of the Old Guard, who, in those 
now far away times, swore never to surrender to what he 
held to be so thoroughly unsportsmanlike an innovation 
as a motor car, and the Doctor was accustomed to offer 
facetious apologies when he and his car drew up at the Mount 
Music hall door. This had become a fairly frequent occur- 
rence. Dick was not the man he had been. When his 
hounds went, old age came, and it came like an illness, 
bewilderingly, unexpectedly. Dick's long, straight legs began 
to give at the knees, and his square shoulders learned 
the hollow curve of the back of his armchair, and submitted 
to it. His long sight, that had outlived the infliction of 
spectacles for reading, was failing him ; he had twice tally- 
ho'd away a yellow cur-dog, at less than a field's distance. 

'* No, Mangan, I'll be damned if I go out to make a fool 
of myself and the hounds ! " he said, when reproached by 
the Doctor for staying at home. " The sooner I'm put down 
like an old hound, the better ! " 

Dr. Mangan had been equal to the occasion, and had 
assured Dick that Bill Kirby was *' lost altogether " for want 
of his counsels, and that the whole field were saying the 
Major was the only man to show sport, and that he knew the 
way a fox'd run, as well as if he was inside him ! 

*' In company with another old gander, I suppose ! " says 
poor Dick, with tears in his eyes, being both moved and 
cheered by his own jest. 

The Doctor's presence was partly a reassurance and partly 
a menace, to Major Dick. There had been, from time to 
time, further opportunities for the investment of the Doctor's 
*' spare ha'pence " in '* something solid and safe, like land." 
Aunt Bessie Cantwell's money, for instance, had, on her 
demise, all come Dr. Mangan's way. There was no need 
for the Major to think there was any obligation, he might 
call it a mutual advantage, if he hked, anyhow, why should'nt 



MOUNT MUSIC 165 

the money go where it was wanted ? The security was all 
right. 

" Oh yes," says Dick, " that's right enough, and whenever 
I can come to terms with the tenants " 

" No hurry ! " the Big Doctor would answer ; ** five per 
cent, is good enough for me ! " 

The Doctor, alone of all Dick's friends, sympathised with 
Major Talbot-Low^ry in the matter of the tenants, and he 
condemned the conduct of his own son, Barty, as heartily 
as did Dick that of his nephew, in their dealings with the 
Coppinger estate. 

" 'Tis impossible to hold these young fellows," he said, 
severely, while he and Dick strolled slowly round the weedy 
flower garden of Mount Music, one sunny August afternoon, 
four years after Larry's coming of age ; "You may be sure that 
I pointed out to Barty that he and Larry were playing the 
deuce with you over the sale, but what could I do ? After 
all, Barty had to obey the orders he got from his boss ! " 

'* I know, I know," responded Dick. *' My dear fellow, 
I don't blame 3'oz/ , my own cousin's a different pair of shoes ! 
Richard may fight it out with the tenants when I'm gone. 
He'll have to marry money. Why, my God ! If I sold at 
these fellows' price, the property would hardly clear itself ! 
At least," Dick cleared his throat and picked himself up with 
a guilty jerk, as does a horse who stumbles from careless- 
ness, *' at least, it would cover the charges, and — and the 
mortgages of course — but not much more " 

Dr. Mangan looked straight in front of him, as became a 
mortgagee of delicate feeling, and said with some elaborate- 
ness, " No man need be anxious about money whose security 
is Irish land, nowadays. ' Tis daily appressiating in value." 

" To every man except the owner ! " 

Dick struck hard with his ash-plant at a tall weed as he 
spoke, and decapitated it with the grace and dexterity of the 
old cavalryman. He put force enough into the cut to have 
felled a tougher foe. 

" This place is turned into a wilderness " he went on, 

and then, staggering, caught at the Doctor's thick arm. 

In an instant the Big Doctor had his other arm round 
Dick's shoulders, and held him firm. 

*' Stand still, Major, it's nothing 1 You'll be all right in 



i66 MOUNT MUSIC 

a minute ! " he said, meeting Dick's frightened eyes with 
reassuring steadiness. " The sun's very hot. It's only a 
touch of giddiness " 

He stood, a great rock of support, uttering leisurely words 
of consolation, while he quietly slipped one hand down the 
Major's arm, until his broad, perceptive finger-tips could 
feel the faint pulse jerking under their pressure. 

Dick's colour crept back, and the veins, that had shown 
blue on the sudden yellow of his cheek, began to lose their 
vividness. 

" That's more like it ! " said the Doctor, tranquilly. *' Do 
you sit quite here for a minute, now, and I'll go get you a 
drop of something from our friend, Mr. Evans, that'll do 
you no harm ! " 

He established his patient on a garden seat, and left him, 
moving slowly until he knew he was no longer in sight ; 
then he swung into the house, with swift strides that would 
have compelled a smaller man to run, if he were to keep 
level with him. 

" Poor old lad ! " he thought, compassionately ; yet, 
blended wath the compassion, was the half-unconscious 
triumph of strong middle-age at sight of the failure of a 
senior. " That's the first knock. He'll want to mind 
himself from this out — the next one might hit him harder." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

The back stairs at Mount Music were old and precipitous. 
To descend them at high noon demanded circumspection ; 
at night, when the armies of the cockroaches were abroad, and 
marauding rats came flopping up and down them, upon their 
unlawful occasions, only that man of iron, Robert Evans, 
was proof to their terrors. Christian, even though inured 
from childhood to the backstairs, held her habit skirt high, 
and thanked heaven for her riding-boots, as she made her 
way down the worn stone steps, at some half -past four of a 
September morning. 

Mount Music was one of the many houses of its period 
that, with, to quote Mrs. Dixon, " the globe of Ireland to 
build over," had elected to bestow its menials in dark and 
complex basements. Christian and her candle traversed 
the long maze of underground passages. The smell of past 
cooking was in the air, the black and evil glitter of cockroaches 
twinkled on the walls on either hand. This was the horrible 
part of cubbing, thought Christian, and told herself that 
nothing but the thought of seeing the debut of Dido, the puppy 
that she had walked, would compensate her for facing the 
cockroaches. 

As she opened the kitchen door she was surprised to find a 
lighted lamp on the table. In the same glance she caught 
a gHmpse of a figure, retreating hastily, with slippered shuffle, 
followed by the trailing tappings of braces off duty. On one 
end of the long kitchen table was seated a cat, in motionless 
meditation, like a profile in an Egyptian hieroglyphic ; at 
the other end was a steaming cup of cocoa and a plateful of 
bread and butter. 

** Long life to Evans ! " thought Christian, seating herself, 
like the cat, on the edge of the table, and entering upon the 
cocoa. 

167 



i68 MOUNT MUSIC 

** Miss Christian ! " a raven-croak came through a slit of 
the pantry-door ; '* keep off the Carmodys' land ! Mind 
now what I'm tellin' you ! " The slit ceased. 

" Thank you for the cocoa, Evans, but why must I ? " 
called Christian, in a breath. 

A lower croak, that seemed to end with the words " black 
papishes," came through the closed door. 

'* Old lunatic ! " thought Christian ; she drank the cocoa, 
and putting out the lamp, groped her way to the back-door. 
It opened on a shrieking hinge, and she was out into a pale 
grey dawn, pure and cold, with the shiver and freshness of 
new life in it. 

The Mount Music stable yard was an immense square, 
with buildings round its four sides, and a high, ivy-covered 
battlemented wall surrounding and overlooking all. In the 
middle of the yard was an island of grass, on which grew 
three wide-armed and sombre Irish yews, dating, like the 
walls, from the days of Queen Elizabeth. Weeds were 
growing in the gravel of the wide expanse ; more than one 
stable-door dropped on broken hinges under its old cut- 
stone pediments ; the dejection of a faded and remembered 
prosperity lay heavy on all things in the thin, cold air of that 
September dawn. 

The clatter of a horse's hoofs came cheerfully from a stable, 
and, as Christian crossed the yard, a dishevelled young man, 
with a large red moustache, put his head over the half-door. 

" I'm this half-hour striving to girth her, Miss," he com- 
plained, " she got very big entirely on the grass ; the 
surcingle's six inches too short for her, let alone the way she 
have herself shwoU up agin me ! " 

Charles, once ruler and lawgiver, was dead, and, with the 
departure of the hounds. Major Dick's interest in the stables 
had died too ; his tall, grey horse was ending his days in 
bondage to the outside car ; the meanest of the underlings 
who had grovelled beneath Charles' top-boots, was now in 
sole charge, and had grown a moustache, unchecked ; and 
Christian's only mount was a green four-year-old filly, in 
whom she had invested the economies of a life-time, with but 
a dubious chance of their recovery. 

" Can't you get a bit of string and tie up the surcingle, 
Tommy ? " suggested Christian, who was now too well 



MOUNT MUSIC 169 

used to these crises in the affairs of the stable to be much 
moved by them. 

" Sure, I'm after doing it, Miss. TVould make a cat 
laugh the ways I have on it ! She's a holy fright altogether 
with the mane and the tail she have on her ! I tried to pull 
them last night, and she went up as straight as a ribbon in 
the stable ! " 

The flushed face and red moustache were withdrawn, 
and with considerable clattering and shouting, the holy 
fright was led forth. She was a small and active chestnut 
mare, with a tawny fleece, a mane like a prairie fire, and a 
tail like a comet. Her impish eyes expressed an alarm that 
was more than half simulated, and the task of manoeuvring 
her into position beside the mounting block, was comparable 
only to an endeavour to extract a kitten from under a bed 
with the lure of a reel of cotton. An apple took the place of 
the reel of cotton, and its consumption aff"orded Christian 
just time enough to settle herself in her saddle. Since the 
days of Harry the Residue Christian had ridden many and 
various horses, and she had a reputation for making the best 
ot a bad job that had often earned her mounts from those 
who, wishing to sell a horse as a lady's hunter, were anxious 
to impart some slight basis of fact into the transaction. 

Tommy Sullivan watched her admiringly. 

** Where's the meet, Miss t " he said, quickly, as she started, 
and as if he were struck bv a sudden thought. 

'* Nad Wood." 

*' If they run the Valley, Miss, mind out for wire ! " called 
Tommy after her, as she rode out of the yard. *' Carmody's 
fences are strung with it ! " 

He ran to the gate to watch the mare as she capered and 
plunged sideways along the drive, and thanked God, not for 
the first time, for the heav}^ hands that preser\Td him from 
the duty of riding Miss Christian's horses. 

Christian rode past the long ivy-covered face of the house, 
that stared at her with the wall-eyed glare of shuttered 
windows, and down the long avenue, that curved submissive 
to the windings of the Ownashee, now black and brimming 
after a week of rain. Young cattle, that had slept, according 
to their custom, on the roadway, scrambled up as she came 
near, and crashed away through the evergreens, whose 



lyo MOUNT MUSIC 

bared lower branches bore witness to their depredations. 
They were a sight hateful to Christian, who, in spite of her 
resignation to the methods of her groom, cherished a regard 
for tidiness that she had often found was more trouble than 
it was worth. 

She let Nancy, the chestnut mare, have her head, a privilege 
that made short work of the remaining half-mile of avenue, 
and soon the stones and mud of the high road were flying 
behind her, as the little mare, snatching at her bridle, and 
neglecting no opportunity for a shy, fretted on towards the 
sunrise, and the covert that lay, purple, on a long hill, three 
miles away. 

Bill Kirby's foible was not punctuality ; when Christian 
arrived at the appointed cross-roads in the middle of Nad 
Wood she found a patient little group of three or four men, 
farmers, all of them, she thought, waiting under the dewy 
branches of the beeches for the arrival of the hounds. One 
of them rode quickly from the group to meet her. A young 
man, with a slight figure and square shoulders, who was 
riding a long-legged bay horse, that, like its rider, was 
unknown to Christian. The light under the beech trees 
was dim and green, and such faint illumination as the grey 
and quiet sky afforded, was coming, like this rider, to meet 
Christian. He was close to her before he spoke, then he 
caught his cap off his head and waved it, and shouted : 

*' Hurrah, Christian ! Here I am ! Home again ! Don't 
pretend you never saw me before, because I won't stand 
swagger from you ! " 

" Larry ! Not you ? Not really ? " 

He had her hand by this time, and was shaking it 
wildly, despite the resentment of the chestnut mare, at the 
sudden proximity of the bay horse. 

** Yes ! Me all right ! Mot qui vous path — as we say in 
French Paris ! I only got home last night. I bought this 
chap at Sewell's on my way through. He's a County 
Limerick horse. I bet he's a goer ! How do you Hke him .'* " 

It was like Larry to require, instantly, praise and recogni- 
tion for his new purchase, but Christian wasn't thinking of 
the horse. Her wide, clear eyes were fixed on his rider, her 
mind was a hustle of questions. 

Had he changed ? Would he stay ? Did he know that 



MOUNT MUSIC 171 

he was " in black books " with her father ? Would he care 

if he did know ? What ages it seemed ! Four years, 

wasn't it ? Her brain was working too hard to remember, 
but she certainly remembered that he had not had a moustache 
when he was last at home ; such a fanciful little French 
scrap of a moustache as it was too, made of pure gold ! 

" I rather like it, Larry ! " she said, beaming at him ; 
** quite nice ! " 

** What ? W^hat's quite nice ? " says Larry, beaming back ; 
" oh, this ? " He gave the moustache an extra upward 
twist. " Yes, rather so ! Beats the Kaiser's to fits, I 
flatter myself ! I'm glad you like it, but I don't see how you 
could help it ! " 

Yes ! This was the old Larry, the right one ; Christian 
felt very glad. It might so easily have been some one else, 
some one not half so nice as her own old Larry. 

*' Why on earth didn't you say you were coming } Cousin 
Freddy told us that you were painting at Etaples." 

'* So I was till one fine day I 'took the notion for to cross 
the raging ocean,' and I'm jolly glad I did too ! Oh, by Jove ! 
Look at old Bill and the hounds ! What a swell ! Christian, 
do you know I haven't seen a hound for four years ! Do you 
mind if I call them ' dogs,' just till I get used to them a 
bit ? " 

There are few bonds more enduring than those that are 
woven round the playmates of childhood. In how many 
raids had Larry not been Christian's trusted leader ! What 
stolen dainties had they not shared, what punishments not 
endured together ! Larry's three years of seniority had only 
deepened the reverence and loyalty that he had inspired in 
his youngest follower ; he had never presumed upon them ; 
he had been a chieftain worthy of homage, and he had 
had all Christian's. There are some people who appear to 
change their natures when they grow up. They may have 
been pleasing as little boys or girls ; they may be equally 
agreeable as men and women, but there is no continuity and 
no development. They have become new creatures. Christian, 
alone of her family, was essentially as she had ever been, 
and, being of those whose inward regard is as searching as 
their outward observation, she knew it. Now, Larry had 
come back again, and in half-a-dozen sentences she knew 



172 MOUNT MUSIC 

that neither had he changed, and that with him her ancient 
leader had returned. 

The Wood of Nad (which, being interpreted, means a nest) 
filled a pocket on the side of Lissoughter Hill, and had thence 
spread over the crest of the hill, and ended near the cross- 
roads at which the hounds had met. 

" Don't holloa awav an old fox. I want to kill a cub if I 
can. I'll let you know if the hounds get away below. You 
needn't be afraid I won't ! Open the gate ! " 

Thus, magisterially, the Master, standing at the gate 
into the wood, with the hounds crushing round his horse's 
heels. " * Leu in there ! " 

With a squeal or two of excitement from Dido and her 
brethren-puppies, the hounds squeezed through the narrow 
gateway, and were swallowed up by the wood. 

Larry returned to Christian's side. 

" I hate not seeing Cousin Dick out," he began ; *' what 
a pity he gave 'em up ! Why did he } You know. Christian, 
you were pretty rotten about writing to me ! Aunt Freddy 
never tells me a thing about the Hunt ! I didn't even know 
Cousin Dick had chucked till I saw it in The Field." 

Larry was staring at Christian as he spoke. He, like her, 
was searching for his former comrade ; but, unlike her, 
was doing so unconsciously, as Larry did most things. What 
he believed himself to be doing was appraising her appear- 
ance from a painter's point of view. He found he had 
forgotten her eyes. He tried to think of them in terms of 
paint ; Brun de Brtixelles, and a touch of cadmium, or was it 
Verte Emeraude ? Hang it ! How can paint do more than 
suggest the colours of a sunlit moorland pool ? Was it the 
white hunting- tie that gave that special " value " to her face ? 
He had forgotten how delicious in tone was the faint colour 
that just tinted her cheek ; so hopeless a word as pink 
was not to be thought of ; just a hint of Rose Garance doree 
might do it. And to get the drawing of those subtle outlines, 
the ineffable refinement of all her features. Larry put his 
head on one side, and screwed up his eyes (remembering 
faithfully the injunctions of " dear old Chose," en cli^nant 
bien les yeux) and said to himself that she would put dear 
old Chose himself to his trumps, and then maybe he wouldn't 
get her right ! 



MOUNT MUSIC 173 

Aloud he said, peremptorily and professionally : 

** Christian, I'm going to paint you ! Eight o'clock at 
the studio to-morrow morning, Ma'mselle, s^il vous plait ! " 

Christian's response was closured by a wild outcry from 
the wood, hounds and horn lifting up their voices together 
in sudden delirium. Old horses pricked their ears, and young 
ones, and notably, Nancy, began to fret and to fidget. Some 
one said, unnecessarily : " That's him ! " A man, farther 
down the road, turned his horse, and standing in his stirrups, 
stared over the wall into the thick covert, rigid as a dog 
setting his game. Then he held up his hat, and, a moment 
later, something brown glided, with the fluent swiftness 
of a fish in a stream, across the road and over the opposite 
wall. The scream that followed him was not needed ; was, 
indeed, hardly heard in the crashing, clashing clamour of the 
pack, as they came pitching headlong over the wall of the wood, 
and hurling themselves at the opposite wall. It w^as high, 
and had a coped top, and the yelling hounds broke against 
it, and fell, like waves against a cliff. A couple achieved it, 
and the anguish of their comrades, as they heard them go 
away, full-cry, on the line, redoubled. In the same instant, 
Larry was off his tall bay. He flung his reins to Christian, 
and was into the struggling pack. It is no easy matter to 
heave a hound over a high wall, but Larry and a young farmer 
had somehow shoved over four couple, before Bill Kirby and 
his whipper-in came and swept the remainder to a place of 
possible entrance a little further on. 

Larry snatched his plunging horse from Christian, and 
started to gallop before he was fairly in the saddle, kicking 
his right foot into the stirrup as he went, and shouting 
gratitude to Christian for having held the horse. It had not 
been easy. Nancy had proved the accuracy of her groom's 
statement by again *' going up as straight as a ribbon " when 
the hounds crossed the road, and the bav had not been back- 
ward in emulating her efforts. Bill Kirby had had luck ; 
the fox had run left-handed under the wall, and the leading 
hounds met the Master, wMth the body of the pack, at the 
verge of the wood on its father side. A bank, pitted with 
rabbit-holes, a space of stony lane with a pole at its farther 
end, and Nad Wood was a thing of the past. 

Outside, a fair stretch of grass presented itself, falling in 



174 MOUNT MUSIC 

mild gradients to the banks of the Broadwater, sprinkled with 
cattle, dotted with groups of trees clustering round white 
farm houses, from whose chimneys the thin, blue lines 
of the smoke of morning fires were just beginning to 
ascend. 

But few are able to spare much thought for others during 
a first burst out of covert, their strictly personal aflairs being as 
sufficient for them as is the day's share of good and evil for 
the day ; but Larry, looking often over his shoulder as he 
galloped, did not fail to note, despite his engrossment in 
his new purchase, the ease and competence that marked 
Christian's dealings with the chestnut mare, to whom the 
twin gifts of imagination and invention had been lavishly 
granted. It has been ingeniously said that the enemy of the 
aboriginal horse was a creature of about the size of a dinner- 
plate, that lay hidden in grass ; nothing less than a concealed 
dinner-service would have sufficed to account for the mys- 
terious alarms that repeatedly swept Nancy from her course ; 
wafting her, like a leaf, sideways from a stream, impelling 
her to swing, from the summit of a bank, back to the field 
from which she had wildly sprung ; suggesting to her that 
safety from the besetting dangers could alone be secured 
by following the bay horse (whom, after the manner of young 
horses, she had adopted as a father) so closely, and at such 
a rate of speed, that a live torpedo attached to his tail could 
hardly have been a less desirable companion. 

At a momentary check, an elderly farmer, many of whose 
horses had owed to Christian their first introduction to a side 
saddle, spoke to her. 

" For God's sake, Miss Christian," he said, fervently, 
" go home with that mare ! She's very peevish ! I wouldn't 
like to be looking at her ! She has that way of jumping 
stones her nose'd nearly reach the ground before her feet ! " 

" Never fear that young lady's able for her ! " struck in 
another farmer, the former owner of Nancy. *' How well 
yourself 'd be asking her to be riding nags that couldn't see 
the way that little mare'd go ! Didn't I see her go mountains 
over the stone gap awhile ago ? And yourself seen the same, 
John Kearney ! " 

** If it was mountains and pressy-pices that w^as in it 
itself," returned John Kearney, severely, "I'd say the same, 



MOUNT MUSIC 175 

Michael Donovan. Miss Christian knows me, and I'm 
telling her " 

At this point, however, Christian's attention was absorbed 
by Dido, who was comporting herself with precocious zeal, 
and, an instant after, the dispute was ended by the shriek 
with which she proclaimed her success. For some fifteen 
minutes the hounds ran hard and fast ; Nancy began to settle 
down, and to realise that her adopted parent invariably 
changed feet on a bank, and never jumped stones as if he 
were a cork bursting perpendicularly from a bottle of cham- 
pagne. The fox was taking them through the best of the 
Broadwater Vale country ; pasture-field followed pasture- 
field, in suave succession, the banks were broad and benevolent, 
the going clean and firm. The sun had just risen, and was 
throwing the long blue shadows of the hedge-row trees on 
the dew-grey grass. The river valley was full of silver mists, 
changing and thinning, like the visions of a clairvoyant, 
yielding slowly the beauty of the river, and of its garlanding 
trees, to those who had eyes to see. The sky became bluer 
each instant as the sun rushed up, and Bill Kirby said to 
himself that the hunt was too good to last, and the scent 
would soon be scorched out. 

Not long afterwards came the check. The fox had run 
through a strip of plantation, and in the succeeding field the 
scent failed. It was a wide pasture-field, in which a number 
of young cattle were running, snorting, bellowing, and 
gathering themselves into defensive groups at the unwonted 
sight of hounds. 

** That's a nice little plan of a mare ! " said the young farmer 
who had helped Larry with the hounds, drawing up beside 
Christian, " and you have her in grand condition. Miss ; 
she's as round as a bottle ! She has a great jump in her ! " 
he went on. " She fled the last fence entirely ; she didn't 
leave an iron on it ! She was hopping off the ground like a 
ball ! " 

" That was no credit to her ! " said John Kearney, eyeing 
the mare and her rider gloomily. 

*' 'Twas a sweet gallop altogether," said Nancy's former 
owner, addressing Christian, and ignoring Mr. Kearney's 
challenge, " and the mare carried you to fortune ! But sure 
it'd be as good for you to take her home now, Miss Christian, 



176 MOUNT MUSIC 

she has enough done. The fences from this out aren t too 
good at all." He cast a glance at Kearney. 

" Faith, and that's true for you," said Kearney quickly, 
** Be said by us now, Miss Christian, and go home. The road 
isn't but two fields back. The hounds'U do no more good, 
sure the sun's too strong." 

" Where are we ? " broke in Larry, joining the group ; 
" I've lost my bearings." 

" Them's the Carmodys' bounds, sir," said Michael 
Donovan in a colourless voice, indicating the next fence. 

" Carmody's } " said Larry. ** Then isn't the Derrylugga 
gorse somewhere hereabouts ? I see he's casting them 
ahead." 

" It's burnt down," said Christian, hurriedly. Something 
in her face checked Larry's exclamation. In Ireland people 
learn to be silent on a very imperceptible hint. 

The farmers moved away. Said Michael Donovan in 
a low voice to John Kearney : 

" Will she go back, d'ye think ? " 
I d'no. Har'ly, I think ! " 

It'd be a pity anything'd happen her. She's a lovely 
girl to ride ! " 

*' You may say that, Michael ! The father gave her the 
sate, but it was the Lord Almighty gave her the hands ! " 
said old Kearney, devoutly. 

" Maybe He'll mind her, so ! " responded Michael 
Donovan, without irreverence. 

The shifting of responsibility brought some ease of mind. 

" God grant it ! " said John Kearney. 

Christian was ordinarily possessed of an innate reasonable- 
ness that responded to reason, but fear was not in her, and an 
appeal to reason was least potent with her when she was in 
the saddle. The veiled hints of danger, by which from, 
Evans onwards, she had been beset, only woke the spirit of 
revolt that slept in her but little less lightly than it had slept 
in her childhood, and were as fuel on the flame the run had 
kindled. 

*' Larry," she said, with a light in her eyes, and a flush 
in her cheeks, " do you think I ought to go back .'' " 

*' Go back .? Why should you ? " 

Larry, having received a hasty sketch of the position, gave 






MOUNT MUSIC 177 

his advice with all the assurance of complete ignorance. 
" Your father has the sporting rights — anyhow, I don't believe 
they'll stop you. Irishmen are " 

Dissertation as to what Irishmen were or were not, attract- 
ive though it was to a young man who knew nothing of the 
subject, w^as checked by the success of Bill Kirby's cast 
ahead. Half way across the big field, the hounds, who had 
been industriously spreading themselves, and examining 
blades of grass and fronds of bracken with the intentness of 
botanists, came, with a sudden rush, to a deep note from old 
Bellman, and, as suddenly, broke into full-cry, with the un- 
animity of an orchestra w^hen the baton comes dow'n. They 
headed for " Carmody's bounds," and were over that soHd 
barrier, and running hard across the succeeding field, before 
most of the riders had realised what bad happened. The 
bounds fence was an honest jump — big, but safe. Nancy, 
at the heels of the bay horse, came up on to it with a perfection 
that banished all other thoughts from Christian's mind. 
On the landing side, under the bank, was a strong-running 
stream, and two or three of the horses, at sight of it, checked 
on the wide top of the bank, and tried to turn. Not so Nancy. 
It was enough for her that her father by adoption had not 
hesitated. She slid her forefeet a little way down the grassy 
side and went out over the water as if the bank had been a 
springboard. It was only then, at the gorgeous moment of 
successful landing, that Christian was aware of a young 
man running towards the riders, bawhng, and demonstrating 
with something that might be a gun. 

** That's one of the Carmodys, Miss," said old Kearney, 
galloping near her. *' Don't mind him ! It's as good for 
you to go on now. That's the house below " 

" Come on, Christian ! " shouted Larry ; " he'll do no 
harm!" 

The thought crossed Christian's mind that it might be 
better to disregard these counsels, and to stop and speak to 
the assailant, but Nancy had views of her own, and such 
arguments as a snaffle could offer were quite unavailing. 
*' I might as well go on," thought Christian, *' we shall be 
off his land in a minute." 

A very high bank, crowned with furze and thorn bushes, 
divided them from the next field ; there was but one gap in 

M 



178 MOUNT MUSIC 

it, near the farm-house, and this was filled with a complicated 
erection of stones and sods, built high, with light boughs 
of trees laid upon them ; not a nice place, but the only 
practicable one. Bill Kirby and his whipper-in jumped it ; 
some of the farmers drew back, but Larry's bay horse charged 
it unhesitatingly, and soared over it with the whole-souled 
gallantry of a well-bred horse. Nancy, pulling hard, followed 
him. Christian heard Larry shout, and, looking round, saw him 
turn in his saddle and strike with his crop at something unseen. 
At the last instant, as the mare was making her spring, a 
second man appeared on the farther side of the jump, yeUing, 
and brandishing a wide-bladed hay-knife. To stop was 
impossible ; Christian could only utter a sharp cry of warning, 
as Nancy, baulked by the suddenness of the attack, but unable 
to stop herself, went up almost straight into the air, and came 
down on the boughs, with her hindlegs on one side of them 
and her forelegs on the other. Then she fell forward on to 
her knees, and rolled on to her off shoulder, her hind legs 
still entangled in the boughs. Christian fell with her, and 
as the mare's shoulder came to the ground, her rider was 
thrown a little beyond her on the off side. The man, having 
saved himself by a leap to one side, had instantly taken to 
his heels. 

Christian was on her feet before even Larry, quick as he 
was in stopping his horse and flinging himself from his back, 
could reach her. 

" Are you hurt } " The question, so fraught with fear, 
and breathless with remembered disasters, was answered 
almost before it was uttered. 

*' Not a scrap ! Absolutely all right ; but I don't know 
about Nancy '" 

One of the mare's hind feet was wedged in the fork of a 
bough ; she struggled fiercely, and in a second or two she 
had freed both her hind legs from the tangle of twigs, and lay 
prone at the foot of the barricade. 

*' She's all right ! He didn't touch her," said Larry, 
catching her by the bridle. " Come, mare ! " 

Nancy made an effort, attempting to get on to her feet, 
and rolled over again on to her side. 

" Oh, get the mare up, one of you ! " shouted Larry, wild 
with the rage that had gathered force from the terror by which 



MOUNT MUSIC 179 

it had first been strangled. " I want to go after that damned 

coward '" 

He caught his horse's bridle from a man who had climbed 
over the bank, leaving his own horse on the farther side. 

" Why the devil did none of you stop the brute ? " he 
stormed at the little group, now standing on the bank, looking 
down upon the prostrate mare, while he tried to steady his 
plunging horse in order to mount. 

** It's no good for you, sir ! " called John Kearney to him ; 
** he's away back of the house, ye'U never get him ! " 

*' Don't go, Larry," said Christian, who was kneeling by 
Nancy, caressing her and murmuring endearments. "I'm 
afraid she's badly hurt." 

The mare was lying still. Michael Donovan, who had bred 
her, slipped his hand under her, and drew it out, red with 
blood. 

** Go after him, if ye hke, the bloody ruffian ! " he said, 
furiously, " but the mare will never rise from this ! Oh, 
my lovely little mare ! " 

" What do you mean ? " Larry let his horse go, and flung 
himself on his knees beside Donovan. Christian, colourless 
continued to try and soothe Nancy, who lay without moving, 
though her frightened eye turned from one to another, and 
her ears twitched. 

** Staked she is !" roared Donovan; " that's what I mean ! 
Look at what's coming from her ! " 

He broke into a torrent of crude statements, made, if 
possible, more horrible by curses. 

Larry struck him on the mouth with his open hand. 

" Shut your mouth ! Remember the lady ! " 

Michael Donovan took the blow as a dog might take it, 
and without more resentment. 

Christian quickly put her hand on his shoulder. 

*' Don't mind, Michael. Let me see what has happened 
to her " 

Nancy's eye rolled back at Christian, as she stooped over 
her, leaning on Donovan, Already, a dark pool was forming 
beside her. 

" You couldn't see where the branch bet her, IMiss," said 
Donovan, quieted by Christian's touch, *' but there's what 



i8o MOUNT MUSIC 

done it ! " He pointed to the sharp, jagged end of one of 
the branches, red with blood. 

" The Vet — " said Christian, trying to think, speaking 
steadily. " Couldn't someone fetch Mr. Cassidy ? " 

" No good, my dear," said old Kearney, wagging his head ; 
'* No good at all ! There's no medicine for her now but 
what '11 come out of a gun ! " 

Christian looked up into the faces of the little knot of men 
round her. 

*' Is that true ? " she said, watching them. 

And all the time a voice in her mind said to her that it was 
true. 

" God knows I wouldn't wish it for the best money ever 
I handled," said one man, and looked aside from her eyes. 

Another shook his head, and muttered something about 
the Will o' God. A third said it was the sharp end of the 
branch that played hammock with her ; he lost a cow once 
himselfthe same way. Old Kearney summed up for the group. 

*' There is no doubt in it, Miss Christian, my dear child — " 

Christian leaned hard on Larry's shoulder as she rose to 
her feet. 

'* I'm going to get Carmody's gun," she said, beginning to 
walk away. " He had one. I saw it. I don't suppose 
he'll mind lending it to me." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

There are illnesses that take possession of their victims 
slowly and quietly, with an imperceptible start, and a gradual 
crescendo of envelopment ; others there are, that strike, 
sudden as a hawk, or a bullet. And this is true also of that 
other illness, the fever of the mind and heart that is called 
Love. An old song says, and says, for the most part, truly, 

** I attempt from Love's sickness to fly in vain." 

Larry Coppinger did not attempt to fly, even though he 
knew as precisely the moment when the fever struck him, 
as did Peter's wife's mother when her fever left her. Perhaps 
he might then have tried to escape ; he knew it was too late 
now. That fatal rapturous moment had been when he saw 
Christian setting forth, a lonely, piteous figure, to fetch 
Carmody's gun. He had followed her, and his entreaties 
to her to let him deal with the matter had prevailed. She 
had turned back, and kneeling down again, kissed the white 
star on Nancy's forehead, murmuring something to her that 
Larry could not hear. He had put her saddle on his own 
horse ; when he mounted her, she had stooped down from the 
tall horse's back, and had whispered : " ' That thou hast to 
do, do quickly.' " He went over it all in his mind ; that was 
all she had said, and he had not seen her since. 

On that afternoon as he moved about the room he had 
chosen for his studio, and unpacked the monster cases he 
had brought from Paris, he remembered how, long ago, 
Mrs. Twomey had laughed at him w^hen he told her he was 
never going to marry. 

** Wait awhile ! " mocked Mrs. Twomey, ** one day it'll 
sthrike ye all in the minute — the same as a pairson'd get 
a stitch when they'd be leaning over a churn ! " 

i8i 



i82 MOUNT MUSIC 

Well, it had so stmck him, and struck him hard, and he was 
reeling from the blow. 

Her courage, oh God ! her courage ! How she had ridden 
that little mad devil of a mare ! There wasn't a man out 
who would have got her over that big country as she had ! 
And then, when that cur had done his dirty work and bolted, 
was there a whimper or a cry from her ? She had faced the 
music ; she had started off to get the gun herself. He 
knew, just a little, just dimly, he told himself humbly, what 
the sight of suffering was to her, and she had stood up to it. 
She, with her passion for animals ; she, with her tender, tender 
heart ! Larry, who beheved himself to be profoundly 
introspective, did not know that it was his own flawless 
physical courage, finding and recognising its fellow in 
Christian, that had first lit the flame. He thought it was her 
face, with its delicate charm, its faint, elusive loveliness, 
that had felled him, laid him low, devastated him. He 
pleased himself in reiterating his overthrow, in enumerating 
its causes, while he banged bundles of canvases on to the floor, 
and pitched clattering sketching-easels and stools into 
corners, and covered tables and chairs with the myriad colour- 
boxes, sketch-books, palettes of every shape and variety, 
brushes, bottles, all the snares that the ingenious marchavd 
d couleurs spreads in the sight of the bird, and into which the 
bird, especially if he be, hke Larry, a rich amateur, cheerfully 
hops. He hardly was aware of what he was doing, his hot 
thoughts raced in his brain. It seemed to him now to have 
becii years ago that he saw her, in the grey light, riding 
towards him on Nancy. She had said that he might paint 
her ; that was all that he had thought of then. Much 
had happened since then ; the supreme thing had happened 
since then ! Nothing else really mattered, he thought, 
sitting down on the edge of a half-empty packing case, and 
lighting a cigarette, not even the shooting of Nancy. He 
would give her a do? en Nancys if she wanted them ! The 
first and most important thing in the world was to see her 
again ; and he had to arrange how, and when, and where he 
should paint her. Obviously he must at once proceed to 
Mount Music. 

There is a saying among Larry's countrymen : " If a man 
want a thing he mus^ have it ! " Fortune had, so far, been 



MOUNT MUSIC 183 

kind to Larry, and those things that he had wanted sufficiently, 
he had had. It now remained to be proved if the rule were 
to have an exception. 

" I'm going over to Mount Music just now," he said to 
Frederica at tea time. " I want to see them all. Will you 
come, Aunt Freddy ? " 

Aunt Freddy looked perturbed. 

" You haven't seen Cousin Dick yet, have you ? " 

** No. How could I ? He wasn't out. I've seen no one 
yet but Christian." 

His voice lingered on the beloved name, beloved, con- 
sciously, since so few hours. 

But Aunt Freddy was not apt to perceive fine shades, and 
she was, moreover, occupied with the framing of a warning. 

" You know that Cousin Dick is a good deal changed since 
you saw him ? " she began. " He had a sort of heart attack 
about a year ago — Dr. Mangan was with him, luckily. They 
have to try and keep him very quiet, and the worst of it is 
that so little puts him out." 

** Well, I shan't put him out, shall I ?" said Larry, con- 
fidently, beginning on a third slice of cake, love not having, 
so far, impaired his appetite. 

" He was fearfully put out about your selling to the tenants. 
He said young Mangan had no right to advise you to sell so 
low. He told me that even Dr. Mangan was quite against 
his doing so." 

Miss Coppinger regarded her nephew with anxiety. After 
four years of absence, one never knew exactly how much a 
young man might not have changed. That little, upturned, 
golden moustache might not by any means be the whole 
of it. The ice barrier had been forgotten in the excitement 
of his return, but even though she understood — and tried 
not to feel that the fact had its mitigations — that all young 
men in France were atheists, that other fact remained, 
that next Sunday, when she started for Knock Ceoil church, 
Larr}'', if he went anywhere, would go to the w^hite chapel 
on the hill. Aunt Freddy was afraid of no one where she 
believed herself to be right (and the Spirit of the Nation 
had long since assured her of this in matters of religion) ; 
least of all was she afraid of " a brat of a boy," whom, as she 
boasted, she had often whipped soundly when he deserved 



i84 MOUNT MUSIC 

it. But, unfortunately, the brat had her heart in his hands, 
and her heart was softer than Aunt Freddy knew ; and this 
gave the brat an unfair advantage. 

** Then you know, Larry," she continued, her eyes showing 
what her firm mouth did not admit ; ** you know, my dear 
boy, it was rather — well, rather a shock to us to see in the 
papers your name proposed as the Nationahst candidate 
here. It upset Dick very much, and, I must say," she added, 
unflinchingly, *' me too ! " 

Larry put down the third piece of cake, half-finished, and 
went round the tea-table, and sitting on the arm of Frederica's 
chair, put his arm round her thin shoulders. 

" I'm so sorry ! " he said, knowing his power, and using 
it, '* dear Auntie Fred ! I ought to have written to you. I 
forgot all about the beastly thing. But you wouldn't want me 
to go back of my word } As for the property — well, I 
thought that was only my own affair. I've come all right out 
of it ; why shouldn't I give the tenants the best terms I 
could .? " 

** Cousin Dick says " began Frederica, standing to 

her guns. 

" And that other show," went on Larry, disregarding what 
Cousin Dick might have said. " Goodness knows when 
there'll be an election " 

** That doesn't alter the fact," said Frederica, firmly. 

" Yes, I know. Of course I must hold by my own convictions, 
but let's put off the row until the time comes ! One is bound 
to have rows at elections ! I don't want to fight now ! " 

He pressed a kiss upon her forehead. He was feeling in 
love and charity with all men. To wheedle Aunt Freddy 
into forgiveness was the first outlet that presented itself for 
the excitement that was consuming him. 

Larry walked to Mount Music through the Wood of the 
Ownashee, alone. Miss Coppinger said she disliked the short 
way across the river by the stepping stones, and preferred to 
drive the now venerable Tommy round by the road ; in her 
heart, brave as she was, she trusted that Larry would have got 
through his meeting with Dick before she arrived. There- 
fore did Larry step along the pebbly path by the river, under 
the dense canopy of beechen boughs, with, for companions, 
only the two hound puppies that Bill Kirby did not fail to 



MOUNT MUSIC 185 

foist annually upon all amenable friends. These lumbered 
after Larry's quick foot, with all the engaging absurdity of 
their kind ; tripping over their own enormous feet, chewing 
outlying portions of one another, as ill-brought-up babies 
chew their blankets ; sitting down abruptly and unpre- 
meditatedly, and watching with deep dubiety the departing 
form of their escort, as though a sudden and shattering 
doubt of his identity had paralysed them, until some contrary 
wind of doctrine blew them into action again, and they 
hurled themselves upon his trail, filled with the single inten- 
tion to rush between his legs. Nothing but that instinct 
of self-preservation that operates independent of the reason, 
preserved Larry from frequent and violent overthrow. His 
head was in the clouds ; he was abandoning himself to dreams, 
with the very same headlong enthusiasm that Scandal and 
Steersman brought to bear upon the problems of existence. 
He strode past the glade that had been the scene of the Cluhir 
picnic without so much as a thought of Tishy Mangan. 
Had you or I reminded him of that brief, yet moving, 
episode, he would probably have regarded us with wide, 
bewildered, blue eyes, and asked for details. Then, as 
memory awakened, he would have laughed delightedly, 
and said : " Yes ! By Jove ! So I was ! But Georgy cut 
me out, didn't he ? " And he might have added that there 
had been scores of them since Tishy, he had forgotten half 
of them — but this, this ! Larry would then, inevitably, 
have lapsed into rhapsody, as would be no more than was 
decent and right in a young man of artistic temperament, 
and you or 1, our malign intention baffled, would have retired 
in deserved confusion. 

Old Evans was in the hall as Larry walked in through the 
open door. He received Larr^^'s hand-shake coldly ; the 
four years that had passed since Larry had seen him had 
withered and greyed him ; Larr^', something dashed by the 
reception, remembered the title given him long ago by 
Christian — ** the many-wintered crow%" — and found satis- 
faction in deciding that the crow was a scald-crow, and a sour 
old divil at that ; anyhow, Evans had always had a knife 
into him, so it made no difference. 

In the drawing-room things went well enough, even though 
there was an unexplainable chill in the atmosphere. Cousin 



i86 MOUNT MUSIC 

Isabel was as kind and gentle and vague as ever ; Judith was 
there, very handsome and prosperous, not over-enthusiastic 
in welcome, rather inclined to patronise a very young man, 
quite two months younger than a married lady of position 
and importance. Nevertheless, there was something 
unregenerate about her eye, that, taken in connection with the 
two subalterns in whose car she had come to call at Mount 
Music, suggested that Bill Kirby might at times find life 
stirring. John, recently ordained, now a very decorative 
curate in a London church, was there, even more patronising 
than Judith, and undecided whether to regard Larry with 
suspicion, as a brand still smouldering from the fires of 
secularist France, or aflPectionately, as a member of what, 
in one of his earlier sermons, he had described as *' Our 
ancient Mother Church, dear Peopul ! Beloved, but in some 
matters, that I will presently indicate to you, mistaken ! '* 

The subalterns were remote, not approving of the style of 
Larry's tie (which he had bought in Paris, and difi"ered from 
theirs) and Cousin Dick was not there. 

" You must go and see him, dear Larry," says Cousin 
Isabel, *' he's in the study." 

" And Christian ? Though, of course, I met her this 
morning " says Larry. 

Christian, poor child, went out for a little walk with the dogs 
just now. Christian (poor child) had felt that wretched business 
this morning so terribly. The wretched business was gone 
into, thoroughly and exhaustively, and yet Larrj'^ felt that 
across one corner of it there was a fold of curtain drawn. 
He said he would go and see Cousin Dick. There was always 
a chance that Christian, also, might be in the study. The 
axiom that " If a man want a thing he mus^ have it," should, 
in Larry's case, have the corollary that he must have it at 
oilce. 

The Major was standing by the chimney piece in the study, 
warming one foot after the other at the fire that Evans had 
just replenished. Larry met the scald-crow at the door, and 
Evans passed him "as if," thought Larry, disgustedly, 
** he had been seeing me every day for a year ! The old 
beast always hated me ! " Larry did not like being hated. 

Cousin Dick's greeting was more like old times. Dick 
was one of those people whose wrath has a tendency to 



MOUNT MUSIC 187 

intermit and get cold, even to perish, temporarily, from 
forgetfulness. On the other hand, in compensation, perhaps, 
for this failing, it was a fire easily rekindled. He was 
still shaking Larry's hand, and looking him up and down, 
affectionately, and withal, with the inevitable patronage of a 
long-legged man for one from whom Nature has withheld 
similar advantages, when Larry discovered the large presence 
of Dr. Mangan uplifting itself from the chair facing Cousin 
Dick's, by the fire. (But Christian was not there. He 
resigned him.self.) There was no want of warmth in the Big 
Doctor's reception. He was quite aware of this himself, 
and was artist enough to know how useful an asset was the 
fact that he was genuinely fond of Larry He had indeed 
proposed to exhibit his affection in pleasing contrast to the 
coolness of Larry's Protestant relatives, and that the Major 
had forgotten the role assigned to him, was a little disappoint- 
ing. " But wait awhile ! " thought the Big Doctor, who, 
among his other elephantine qualities, possessed that of 
patience. 

The Major seated himself in front of the fire, and Larry 
pulled up a chair, wondering in his heart what these old boys 
wanted with a fire this lovely afternoon, and delivered himself 
to the old boys and to conversation. This, naturally, set 
with a single movement towards the event of the morning. 
** A real likely httle mare, and shaping well, I'm told," says 
Dick, *' and by the bye, Larry, that's a dev'Hsh nice horse of 
yours that Christian came back on. Where did you get 
him ? " 

These hunting men were incorrigible, the Doctor thought, 
seeing the Carmody question in danger of being side-tracked. 

" Things have come to a funny way in this country," he 
observed, '* when a fellow will deliberately chance killing a 
young lady, rather than let her ride over his land — and she 
having a right to ride over it into the bargain ! " 

It needed but little to start Major Talbot-Lowry again on 
the topic that had occupied him unceasingly since Christian's 
return that morning. Beginning with the burning of the 
Derrylugga gorse covert, and moving on through threatening 
letters, and rents deliberately withheld, he lashed himself 
into one of the quick furies that Larry remembered well. 
What Larry was less prepared for than was his friend, Dr. 



i88 MOUNT MUSIC 

Mangan, was the sudden turn that the storm took in his 
direction. 

** The blackguards think they can frighten me into selling 
on their own terms ! " shouted Dick, " and that damned 
priest of theirs — I beg your pardon, Mangan, but the fellow 
doesn't behave like a clergyman, and it's impossible to think 
of him as one — is backing them up, and I may say " — here 
it was that the heart of the storm was revealed — " I may say 
that I'm very little obliged to your son, or to his principal 
here, for the part they have played in the affair ! That was 
the beginning of the whole thing ! " He turned fiercely 
upon Larry, his tenor voice pitched on a higher key. " How 
could I, with my property loaded with charges, that were no 
fault of mine, sell at the price you could afford to take ? 
Look at the price that fellow — what's his damned name ? — 
Brady, got for his farm, for the tenant-right alone, mind you ! 
Forty years' purchase I And I'm offered seventeen for the 
fee simple ! *' 

Dick was standing up on the hearthrug, towering over the 
Doctor and Larry in their low chairs. Larry noticed how 
thin he had become, and how the well-cut grey clothes, 
that he always wore, hung loosely on his shrunken figure. 
** You're a young fellow now, Larry ; wait till you've been 
for thirty years doing your best for your property and your 
country, and getting no thanks ! Thanks ! " Dick gave a 
brief and furious laugh. "I've kept the hounds for them. 
I've slaved on the Bench and on Grand Juries. I've got them 
roads and railways, and God knows what else — v/hatever they 
wanted — I've sat at the Board of Guardians, and done my 
best to keep down the rates, till they kicked me out to make 
room for men who would sell their souls for a sixpence, 
and made their living out of bribes ! " 

'* Oh, come, come. Major, it's not so bad as all that ! " said 
the Big Doctor, soothingly, as Dick stopped, panting for 
breath. " Don't mind it now ! " 

" But I must mind it ! " shouted Dick. *' When I think 
of how I've been treated, and plenty more like me, loyal men 
who run straight and do their best, I declare to God I feel 
I don't know which I hate worst, the English Government, 
that pitches its friends overboard to save its own skin, or my 



n 
it 



MOUNT MUSIC 189 

own countrymen, that don't know the meaning of the word 
gratitude ! " 

He turned again upon Larry : " And upon my word and 
honour, Larry, I didn't think that your father's son would 
have been tarred with that brush, anyhow ! " 

*' Now, Major," broke in Dr. Mangan, again, ** you know we 
agreed that there was no use in attaching too much importance 
to that transaction. Barty and Larry here were in a 
very difficult position, and even though you and I might not 
have approved entirely of their action " 

" But, Doctor," interrupted Larry, bewildered, and dis- 
mayed, *' You — I thought you had advised Barty — " 

The Big Doctor frowned at him, and winked too, while he 
laid his huge white hand on his watch-pocket, tapping with 
his middle finger on the spot which, as he knew, the average 
layman dedicated to the heart. He trusted to Larry's quick- 
ness, and did not trust in vain. 

A sort of heart attack," Aunt Freddy had said. 
I'm most frightfully sorry, Cousin Dick," Larry began, 
hurriedly, before a worse thing happened. " Somehow, 
I never thought — you see I was out of the country — it seemed 

to me that " he was going to repeat those comforting 

sedatives about leaving the man at the helm to bark for you — 
(Heavens ! He had been on the point of saying that ! Was 
he going to laugh ?) — but he couldn't give Barty away. He 
rushed into apology, regret, abuse of his own ignorance, 
and imbecility, and the Big Doctor, at each pause in the 
penitence, poured a little oil and wine into the wounds for 
which Larry and the Carmodys were jointly reponsible, 
and Dick's anger, like the red that had flared to his face, 
fell like a spent flame. 

** Say no more, boy, say no more," he said, dropping 
into the chair from which he had leaped in the course of his 
apologia pro vita sua ; ''I daresay you knew no better — any- 
how, you didn't mean to do me a bad turn " 

Larry took his hand. *' You know that. Cousin Dick," 
he said, in profound distress. " Of all people in the world 
— the very last. If there was anything I could do now " 

" Well now, I'll tell you what you could do ! " cut in Dr. 
Mangan, jovially, *' you could tell our friend Evans to bring 
in the Major's tumbler of hot milk and whisky, and to look 



190 MOUNT MUSIC 

sharp about it too ! I ordered he was to have it at six o'clock — " 
He looked hard at Larry, who realised that his disturbing 
presence was to be removed, and forthwith removed it. 

He delivered his message, and strayed back to the big, 
empty hall. A sense of aloofness, of having no place nor 
part in this well-remembered house^ was on him. None of 
them wanted him ; he could see that easily enough, and he 
had done Cousin Dick a bad turn. He had said so. If it 
came to that, he supposed he had done Christian a bad turn, 
too — Christian and Cousin Dick^ the only two of the whole 
crowd who had been really glad to see him. He thought of 
her face as she came riding through the dusky wood to meet 
him. *' The dawn was in it ! " he said to himself ; again he 
saw it, lit with the light that the hunt had kindled ; and then 
he thought of her stricken eyes, as she looked from one man 
to another, asking for the hope that they had to refuse 
her. It had been all his fault, or — here the inner apologist, 
that is always quick to console, interposed — not quite 
exactly his fault. How was he to have known } A 
remembrance of Cousin Dick's undeciphered letters came 
to him ; even the inner apologist hung his head. In any 
case — Larry's active mind resumed its deliberations — it 
was quite clearly his business to find Christian and to 
explain to her, as far as was possible, how things stood. 

He left the house. A garden-boy had seen Christian 
*' going w^est the avenue " ; Larry collected Scandal and 
Steersman from the ash-pit, and followed her " west the 
avenue." He walked slowly, noting how neglected was the 
general aspect, how badly the avenue was in need of gravel, 
remembering how in the old days, the bands of slingers had 
never failed of ammunition, wondering if the Major were 
really as hard up as he thought he was ; wondering if they had 
all turned against him, and if they would set Christian against 
him too. He came to the turn near the river that led to the 
stepping stones, and stood, in deepening depression, waiting, 
in the hope that she might come. It was seven o'clock, 
the sun was setting, the^ sky was warming to its last loveliness 
of rose and amber, and amethyst, colours with names almost 
as beautiful as themselves. The long stretches of grass on 
either side of the avenue were a fierce green, the brakes of 
bracken were burning orange, the long shadows of the trees 



MOUNT MUSIC 191 

that fell across the roadway were purple. The grove of yew 
trees, that hid the course of the river from him, had the sharp- 
ness of a silhouette cut out of dark velvet. 

" Not really black," Larry told himself, screwing up his 
eyes. He moved on to the grass, and kneeling framed with 
his hands as much as seemed good to him. In a moment, 
in the intoxication of beauty, he had forgotten his troubles ; 
Cousin Dick, singing the swan-song of the Irish landlords ; 
Dr. Mangan, and his bewildering change of front ; even 
Christian, and her views as to his responsibility for the tragedy 
of the morning, stood aside to make way for the absorbing 
problems of colour and composition. 

The hound puppies strolled on, side by side, heads up, and 
high-held sterns, steering for nowhere in particular, oblivious 
as Larry of all save the moment as it passed. A rush of rooks 
came like a tide across the sky ; they flew so low that the drive 
and rustle of their wings scared the puppies and startled 
Larry. He stood up and watched the multitudinous host 
swing westward to his own woods, and just then, a couple 
of hundred yards ahead, at the turn where the avenue plunged 
into the velvet gloom of the yew-trees, he saw Christian 
coming towards him, alone, save for a retinue of dogs. 

If that old saying (already quoted with reference to Dick 
Talbot-Lowry) be true, when it asserts that " wise men live 
in the present, for its bounty suffices them," then was Larry 
Coppinger, like his cousin, indeed a wise man. Remorse, 
anxiety, the wonder of the sunset, were swept from his mind, 
and Christian filled it like a flood. She looked very tired, 
and he told her so, eyeing her so closely that she turned her 
face from him. 

" I won't be stared at and scolded ! Why shouldn't I 
be tired if I like ? " 

"If it were only tiredness " said Larry, with more 

tenderness in his voice than he knew. ** Christian, they've 
been telling me that it was my fault — the rows with the tenants, 
and that devil coming at you this morning — and — and every- 
thing ! " 

He could not speak directly of Nancy's death ; he knew 
what Christian felt for her horses and dogs. *' I've been 
looking for you everywhere, I wanted to try and tell you 



192 MOUNT MUSIC 

what I felt — but since I've seen your father and old Mangan, 

I feel too abject even to dare to say I'm sorry " 

'* Why should they think it was your fault ? It was my 
own fault. I ought to have gone back when Kearney warned 



me " 



" They meant the whole show. Beginning with Barty's 
selling to my tenants, and then your father's people making 
trouble, and the Carmodys burning the covert, and all the 
rest of it ! They're quite right ! It's all my rotten fault ! 
Christian, I'm going back to France ! I can't face you after 
what I've brought on you ! " 

In the bad moments of life, when the bare and shivering 
soul stands defenceless, waiting for evil tidings, or nerving 
itself to endure condolence. Christian had ever a gentle 
touch ; and she knew too, when it comforted wrong-doers 
to be laughed at. * 

" Oh, Larry ! And you pretended you wanted to paint 
my picture ! " she said, looking at his miserable face with 
eyes that shone as the Pool of Siloam might have shone after 
the Angel had troubled it ; there were tears in them, but 
there was healing, too. 

Larry took her hand and held it tight. 

** You don't mean it — how could you bear to look at me ? " 

" But I shan't look at you 1 You will have to look at me 
— that is, if you can bear it 1 You must try and brace your- 
self to the effort ! " 

This, it may be admitted, was provocation on Christian's 
part, but, as she told herself afterwards, desperate measures 
were necessary, or they would both have burst into tears. 



CHAPTER XXV 

The resolution to return to France, announced, as has been 
set forth , by Mr. St. Lawrence Coppinger, was not adhered to. 
In the first place, there was Barty Mangan and the various 
affairs that he represented ; in the second place, there was 
the portrait ; in the third place — which might as well, if 
not better, have come first — the resolve had expired, like the 
flame of a damp match, in the effort that gave it birth. 

Aunt Freddy welcomed the suggestion of the portrait with 
enthusiasm. She had had four years of peace, " careing " 
Coppinger's Court for the reigning Coppinger ; to *' care " 
the reigning Coppinger himself, was, she felt, a far less 
peaceful undertaking. She agreed entirely with the well- 
worn adage relative to idle hands, and had no illusions 
as to her own capacity to offer alternative attractions. 

" I felt," she remarked to Lady Isabel, ** exactly as if some- 
one had deposited a half-broken young horse in the drawing- 
room, and had told me to exercise it ! My dear, Christian's 
portrait is a Godsend ! But I may tell you, in strict con- 
fidence, that, so far, it's far too clever for an ignoramus like 
me to make head or tail of it ! " 

" It certainly fills their mornings very thoroughly," re- 
sponded Lady Isabel, rather dubiously ; " Christian vanishes 
from breakfast time till lunch. I suppose you see more of 
them ? " 

Aunt Freddy's reply was less distinct and definite than 
was usual with her. Oh, well — occasionally — yes, generally 
— at least, always sometimes — he was painting her in the 
garden, on that seat by the yew hedge — so sheltered and sunny, 

N 1^3 



194 MOUNT MUSIC 

and the weather was so perfect ; she was working in the 
garden herself every morning. Thus did the righteous 
Frederica wriggle and prevaricate, causing Lady Isabel to 
assume that the full rigours of chaperonage were complied 
with, while to herself, Aunt Freddy thought that it would be 
perfectly ideal. But what " it " was, she did not particularise 
to anyone. 

Mr. St. Lawrence Coppinger was not a great artist, but it 
had been conceded to him, even in the studio, that he had 
pretty colour (which was quite without reference to his own 
complexion) and a knack of catching a likeness. Added to 
these gifts he possessed a third, in being able to talk without 
hindering the activities of his brush. They talked a great 
deal to each other during those long, delightful mornings in 
the sunny corner by the yew-hedge ; idle, intimate talk, 
that wandered back to the days of the Companions of Finn, 
and on, through stirring tales of the Quartier Latin into the 
future, and what it was to hold for them. Larry knew what 
his future must hold if it was to satisfy him. Since the 
moment when '* Love's sickness " had laid hold of him 
(the same as a person would get a stitch leaning over a churn) 
he had known it. While he painted her, staring deep and 
hard, appraising, carefully, with his outer soul, the curve of 
her cheek, the delicate drawing of her small ear, the tender 
droop of her dark eyelashes, all the subtle values of light and 
shade, all the problem of inherent colour, and of the colour 
that was lent by the sky and the green things round her, 
his inner soul was repeating the old saying : "I love my 
eyes for looking at you ! " 

Sometimes he thought he would stand it no longer, he 
would throw down his palette and his brushes, and let the 
portrait go to blazes, and kneel at her feet, telling her, over 
and over again, that he loved her, until she would have to 
believe him. Yet, for there is something inhuman about the 
artist, he refrained. The portrait was going so well — the 
best head he had ever done — out of sight better than anything 
he had done at the studio (what wouldn't he give to have a 
lesson on it from old Chose !). He wouldn't break the 
spell of successful work until he could carry the picture no 
farther. Then, he thought to himself, oh then, he would be 
strong to speak ! 



MOUNT MUSIC 195 

And, did he but know it, there was no need to speak ; 
not any need at all. For Christian knew. Not enough has been 
said about her if it has not been made clear that, for her 
spirit, the barriers and coverings that other spirits take to them- 
selves wherewith to build hiding-places and shelters were of 
little avail. Motives and tendencies, the hidden forces 
that underlie action, were perceptible to her as are to the 
water-diviner the secret waters that bend and twist his hazel 
rod. Well she knew that Larry loved her ; he was not the 
first in whom she had divined it, but he was the first whose 
heart, crying to her, voicelessly, had wakened the answering 
chime in hers ; the first, she said to herself, and the last. 
She wondered, sometimes, if he knew ; it seemed incredible 
that he could be with her, watching her, studying her least 
look, and not know. Yet, she loved him for not knowing, 
for his boyishness, his babyishness, his simplicity. She 
wondered if she were a fairy- woman, who by her arts had 
beguiled a mortal. She had met an extraordinary woman 
once, in London, where anyone, however extraordinary, is 
possible, and this being, so she told Larry, had gazed at her, 
raptly, had then assured her that she saw her aura (blue 
shot with gold) and had told her that she had a very aged 
soul. 

*' I felt as if I were an old boot ! " said Christian, 

" Old idiot herself ! " Larry said hotly ; " what else did 
she pretend to know about you ? " 

" She said she had met me before, in a previous incarnation. 
She couldn't believe that I didn't remember her. But I 
couldn't." 

*' I'm glad you couldn't," said Larry, still angry. " I 
won't have you remembering lives that I wasn't in ! Any- 
how, I don't believe they were half as good as this one. I 
call this a thundering good life. / don't want to have been 
Julius Caesar or Queen Anne." 

*' Oh, I daresay you weren't," said Christian, consolingly ; 
** you don't remind me of either of them. What would be 
more to the point would be to know what you were going to 
be. In this life, I mean." 

** Oh, a painter first," said Larry, responding with alacrity, 
as do most people, to the stimulus of discussing himself ; 
** but not exclusively. I shouldn't mind having the hounds 



196 MOUNT MUSIC 

for a bit, and I should like to travel — the gorgeous East, 
you know — that sort of thing. And I must say," he hesitated, 
'* I'm rather keen to have a shot at politics." 

He put down his palette and brushes and began to roll a 
cigarette, while he walked backwards away from his easel, 
staring alternately at his canvas and his model. 

" Have you forgotten that I'm the prospective candidate 
for this constituency } The Home Rule ticket, you know ! " 
He looked at his audience with a touch of defiance ; "I 
don't know what you may think — my notion is " 

The prospective candidate launched forth into a statement 
of his notions ; what, precisely, they were, is a matter that 
may here be omitted. The kaleidoscope of Irish politics 
has made many new patterns since Larry outlined his views 
for Christian, and the pattern of 1907 interests us no more. 
The affinity that exists between politics and eggs is not limited 
to the function of the latter in emphasising criticism of the 
former ; it also extends to individual characteristics. The 
morning newspaper and the morning egg should be equally 
recent. Larry's political notions, when he stated them, 
had at least the merit of freshness, and it shall be left to 
them. 

Christian, listening to his ambitions, felt herself older than 
ever. 

" I think I should be a painter all the time, and let Bill 
keep the hounds for me," she said, indulgently, " and I 
certainly should not play with politics — I'm certain you'd 
hate them." 

" Well, but I'm pledged, you know ! I'm absolutely in 
honour bound to play up if I'm wanted " 

" Whether you know the game or no } " said Christian, 
mockingly. *' Very sporting ! I'm not a Home Ruler, as 
it happens. I've no breadth of outlook ! / haven't been in 
France for four years ! " 

" You're a reactionary ! " declared Larry ; "I tell you 
Self-Government is in the air ! " 

With all her suppleness of mind. Christian had in her 
something of the inbred obstinacy of fidelity that often goes 
with long descent. Her colour rose. 

" We have always stood for the King ! " she said, holding 



MOUNT MUSIC 197 

up her head, and looking past Larry to the high, sailing clouds. 

Larry began to laugh. 

" Christian ! It's awfully becoming to you to talk politics ! 
Keep quite quiet and I'll make a study of you as Britannia 
— or Joan of Arc " 

It was characteristic of these young people, that in the heat 
of political argument they joined battle as freely as if no 
other point of contact existed for them. This it is to be born 
and bred in Ireland, where people live their opinions, and 
everyone is a patriot with a different point of view, and politics 
are a hereditary disease, blatant as a port-wine mark, and 
persistent as a family nose. 

Miss Frederica, with a guilty remembrance of Lady 
Isabel's enquiries, had established her weeding apparatus 
at a bed near the yew-hedge. She heard the voices raised in 
discussion, and, catching words here and there, felt that if 
these were the topics that occupied her charges, Isabel need 
not have inflicted upon her the abominable nuisance of 
poking in her nose where it was not wanted. Thus did Miss 
Coppinger summarise the duties of a chaperon ; but it 
must be remembered that she had never been broken to the 
work, and in any case she had been out of harness for four 
years. 

The luncheon gong sounded to her across the Michaelmas 
daisies, and the tall scarlet lobelias, and the gorgeous dahlias 
of the September garden ; she gathered her tools together 
and projected a shriek in the direction of the yew hedge. 

" Children ! Lunch ! " 

As, dizzy with stooping, she slowly reared herself to her 
full height, she saw a black, moving blur on the drive beyond 
the garden. She rubbed her eyes ; the blur defined itself 
as a man in priestly black. Not Mr. Fetherston, as she had 
first believed, but Father Sweeny. 

" A wolf in sheep's clothing ' " thought Frederica, using, as 
was her wont, the well-worn phrase with guileless zest. 
She held that although it might not, primarily, have been 
intended to describe the Roman Catholic Priesthood, its 
application in a later age was obvious. 

With a cautious eye on the wolf, she approached the yew 
hedge. 



198 MOUNT MUSIC 

" Larry ! Father Sweeny's at the hall door. You must 
ask him in to lunch ! " 

To herself she thought : " He's Larry's affair, thank 
goodness ! And I'll see that my young m.an does his duty ! " 

When Frederica spoke of, or to, her nephew, as " my young 
man," it w^as generally in connection with what she felt to 
be his duty, and felt also that it was her duty to see that his 
was not shirked. 

Father Tim Sweeny, at lunch, at the house of his chief 
parishioner, was a very different being from the damaged and 
ferocious bull in hospital. Conscious of his priestly dignity 
and of the need of supporting it, but shaken by the minor 
stresses of the situation, the senseless multiphcity of forks and 
spoons, the bewildering restrictions by which he felt himself 
to be webbed about, hampered, mastered. Father Tim was as 
a wild bull in a net, and was even pathetic in his unavaihng 
efforts to prove himself equal to his surroundings. He 
cleared his throat at intervals, with an authority that seemed 
to prelude something more epoch-making than an assent 
to one of Frederica's industrious platitudes ; he snuffled and 
fidgeted, eating scarcely at all, and repeUing the reverential 
assiduities of the servants with shattering abruptness. 

" Christian saved the situation," Frederica said, in sub- 
sequent conversation with the Reverend Charles Fetherston ; 
" she absolutely * charmed him to a smile.' She said after- 
wards that the smile made her think of a Druidic stone circle, 
slightly imperfect from age ! She always thinks of absurd 
things ; but I was grateful to her ! She has an amazing 
gift for setting people at their ease." 

"I'm not sure that our respected friend might not be 
more tolerable when he was not at his ease !" said the Reverend 
Charles. 

" Larry simply sulked," continued Miss Coppinger ; 

I*m afraid Paris life does not inculcate much respect for 



reifgion." 



Very possibly ! " said the Reverend Charles, non-commit- 
tally. " I feel for poor Sweeny ! He knows now what 
Purgatory is like ! '* 

" I assure you I was as civil as I knew how to be," asserted 
Frederica. 



MOUNT MUSIC 199 

"I'm sure you were !" said the Reverend Charles, stuffing a 
pipe as he spoke, and sniggering into the bowl. 

Miss Coppinger was justified in believing that Christian 
had been a success with Father Sweeny. 

** I declare I could like that gerr'l, Christian Lowry," he 
said to Father Greer *' She's a good gerr'l enough. 
Decent ' Civil ! " Each adjective of approval was launched 
on a snort that indicated some co-existing irritation ; " but 
I have me own opinion of young Coppinger ! " 

** A good one ? " simpered Father Greer. 

** The reverrse ! " said Father Tim, and at least four r's 
rang and rolled in the word. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

The portrait of that civil and decent girl, Christian Talbot- 
Lowry, was finished ; it had been conveyed to Mount Music, 
and was there estabUshed on an easel in the billiard-room. 
The artist and the model, having raised and lowered 
blinds, and arranged curtains to their liking, or as nearly 
to that unattainable ideal as circumstances permitted, were 
now recovering from the criticism of their relations on the 
completed work. 

The artist who works in the bosom of his own family has 
much to bear, and, so the family consider, much to learn. 
Neither in endurance, nor in the docile assimilation of instruc- 
tion, had Mr. Coppinger been conspicuously successful, 
and his model, on whom had rested the weighty responsibility 
of keeping the peace, or, at least, of averting open warfare 
between the painter and the critics, was now, albeit much 
spent by her efforts, engaged in binding up the wounds 
inflicted on the former by the latter. 

" If you hadn't argued with them, they would have liked 
it very much ; you took them the absolutely wrong way ! 
But they really are deeply impressed by it." 

" I don't care what they think ; I know jolly well it's the 
best thing I've ever done ! " said Larry, whose temperature 
was still considerably above normal. ** Your mother is the 
only one of the lot with a soul to be saved. She didn't 
harangue about what she doesn't understand ! She said : 
* It makes me think of when she was a little child, and used 
to say she saw things, and the other children used to tease 
her so dreadfully ' ! " 

"Quite true," said Christian. " So they did ! And now 
they're going for you ! But you never teased me, Larry." 

" Thank God, I didn't ! " said Larry ; he had been 

200 



MOUNT MUSIC 201 

glowering at his picture, but as he spoke he wheeled round, 
and sat down beside Christian on the long billiard-room 

sofa. " Christian, you know " he began, stammering, 

and hesitating in a way that was unlike himself. 

Christian interrupted him quickly. 

" What shall you call the picture ? I met Barty Mangan 
the other day, and he was asking me all sorts of questions 
about it." 

" I shall call it ' Christian, dost thou hear them ? * " said 
Larry, telling himself that the moment had come. " I 
was feeling that about you all the time — I mean when I was 
painting. Christian, you did hear them, didn't you ? What 
were they saying ? Did they say anything about me ? " 

He caught her hand and leaned to her, compelling her 
eyes to meet his ; **Let her see into my heart ! " he thought ; 
** she will find only herself there ! " 

And just then the door opened, and old Evans appeared. 

Larry released Christian's hand, and went red with rage 
up to the roots of his fair hair. What he thought of Evans* 
incursion was written so plainly on his face, that Christian, 
in that impregnable corner of her mind where dwelt her sense 
of humour, felt a bubble of laughter rise. 

" You asked Mrs. Dixon, Miss, to see the picture," said 
Evans, with a sour look at Larry. " She's outside now." 

" Come in, Dixie," called Christian, with a sensation of 
reprieve. Suspense had been trembling in the air round 
her ; it trembled still, but Dixie would bring respite, if not 
calm. 

Mrs. Dixon, ceremonially clad in black silk, sailed up the 
long billiard room, majestic as a full-rigged ship. Time had 
treated her well ; the increase of weight that the years had 
brought had done little more than help to keep the wrinkles 
smoothed ; her love for Christian, having survived the 
depredations of the larder that had once tried it, had triumphed 
over the enforced economies that marked Christian's rule 
as housekeeper, and was now her consolation for them. 
To apprehend the intention of a painting is not given to all, 
and is a matter that requires more experience than is generally 
supposed. To find a landscape has been reversed by the 
hand that wields the duster, so that the trees stand on their 
heads, and the sky is as the waters that are beneath the firma- 



202 MOUNT MUSIC 

ment, is an experience that has been denied to few painters, 
and Mrs. Dixon would have found many to sympathise 
with her, as she stood in silent stupefaction before the portrait. 
Larry had been justified in his belief in it, but for such as 
Mrs. Dixon, its appeal was inappreciable. Christian's face 
was in shade, the brown darkness of her loosened hair framed 
it, and blended with the green darkness of the yew hedge. 
Faint reflected lights from her white dress, touches of sun- 
light that came through the leaves of the surrounding 
trees gave the shadowed face life. In the clear stillness of 
the eyes, something had been caught of the wonder that was 
latent in Christian's look, the absorption in things far away, 
seen inwardly, that in childhood had set her in a place apart ; 
rarer now, but still there for those to see who could give 
confidence to her shy spirit to forget the limitations of this 
world, and to stray forth to meet invisible comrades from 
other spheres. Sometimes it has been given to an artist 
to rise, not by his conscious volition, above his wonted power ; 
to portray one beloved face with the force of his emotion 
rather than that of his capacity, transcending the limits of 
his ordinary skill, just as a horse will put forth his last ounce 
of effort in response to the magnetism of one rider, and may 
never again touch the same level of achievement. 

But although the very fact that in this canvas something 
had hfted Larry's art to greatness, made it for Mrs. Dixon 
a mystery and a bewilderment, she had no intention of 
admitting defeat. After a moment or two of silence, she cast 
up her eyes in an appeal to what seemed to be a familiar 
near the ceiling, and said in impassioned tones : 

*' Well, well, isn't that lovely .? " 

The familiar apparently confirmed the opinion, for she 
repeated, with a long sigh : ** Wonderful altogether ! I 
could be looking at it all day ! " She turned to Christian 
with profound deference. '* And what might it be intended 
to represent, Miss ? " 

Lariy, who had picked up a cue, and was knocking the 
balls about, gave a short and nettled laugh. 

'' Oh Dixie!" said Christian, suflfering equally with artist 
and critic, " don't you see, it's a picture of me ! " 

Mrs. Dixon took the blow gallantly. 

** Well, wasn't I the finished fool to forget my specs ! I 



MOUNT MUSIC 203 

that couldn't see the harp on a ha'penny without them ! " 

" Don't worry, Dixie," said Larry, smacking a ball into a 
pocket ; "I'm not surprised you didn't recognise it — it's 
not half good enough." 

*' Master Larry, my dear," returned Mrs. Dixon, whose 
social perceptions were more acute than her artistic ones, ''I'll 
go bail there isn't one could take Miss Christian's picture the 
way you could, you that was always her companion ! " She 
moved away from the easel, and murmuring ; " and, please 
God, always will be ! " she rustled away down the long room, 
Mrs. Dixon, indomitable Protestant though she was, did not 
share Evans' opinion of Larry. 

Larry threw down the cue and opened the high French 
window into the garden at the back of the house. 

" Christian, for heaven's sake come out ! I can't stand 
this stinking room any longer ! I feel as if all the im- 
becilities that I've had to endure this afternoon were 
hanging in a cloud over the billiard table. Come up to the 
old stone on the hill, and have some fresh air." 

He stepped out into the garden, and Christian followed him, 
smiling within herself at his impatience, the absurd impatience 
that she loved because it was his. It wouldn't be Larry if 
he suffered fools, or anything else that he disliked, gladly 
or peaceably. The feeling that she was immeasurably 
older than he was was always at its most convincing when 
his painting w^as in question ; even she could not quite 
realise what it meant to him to have rude hands laid upon the 
child of his soul. 

The garden was dank and heavy with overgrown, dying 
things, as ill-cared-for gardens are wont to be at the end of 
September, but the tall bush of sweet-scented verbena, that 
grew by the door in the south wall, was still as green and sweet 
as in high summer. Christian broke off some sprays and drew 
them through her hands before she put one into the front of 
her shirt. 

** Here, Larry," she said, giving him one, ** this will help 
you to forget the billiard room ! " 

Larry gave her a long look as he took it ; "I don't altogether 
want to forget it," he said. " I daresay good old Dixie was 
a useful discipline." 

Had Christian heard Mrs. Dixon's final aspiration she 



204 MOUNT MUSIC 

would have realised that with it Dixie had covered her failure 
as an art critic. 

Outside the garden was a wide belt of fir trees, and beyond 
and above the trees, stretched the great hill, Cnochan an 
Ceoil Sidhe, the Hill of Fairy Music, that gave its name to 
the house and demesne. Christian and Larry passed through 
the shadowy grove, walking side by side along the narrow 
track, their footsteps made noiseless by its thick covering of 
pine needles. It was dark in the wood ; the fir trees towered 
in gloom above them ; here and there in the deep of the 
branches there was the stir of a wing, as a pigeon settled to 
its nest ; from beyond the wood came a brief, shrill bicker 
of starlings ; all things beside these were mute, and in the 
silent dusk, spirit was sensitive to spirit, and the air was 
tense with the unspoken word. 

The sun was low in the west when they came out on to the 
open hillside, and went on up the path, through the heather, 
that led to the Druid stone beside the Tober an Sidhe, the 
fairies' well. The mist, golden and green, that comes with 
an autumn sunset, half hid, half transfigured the wide distances 
of the valley of the Broadwater ; the darkness of the woods, 
blended from this aspect into one, of Mount Music and 
Coppinger's Court, was softened by its veils ; the far hills 
were transparent, as if the light had fused them to clearest 
brown, and topaz, and opal glass. The hill side, above and 
beneath them, glowed and smouldered with the ruby-purple 
of heather. 

Christian and Larry stood in the path beside the ancient 
stone and looked out over the valley ; the vastness and the 
glory of the great prospect whelmed them like a flood, the 
sense of imminence that was over them strung their nerves 
to vibrating and held them silent. 

*' My God ! " sighed Larry, at last, trembling, turning to 
her who had never failed to understand him, *' Christian ! 
it's too beautiful — the world is too big — I can't bear it 

alone " He caught her arm. " You've got to help 

me. Oh Christian ! " 

Christian turned her face from him. 

" I believe I could," she said in a very low voice. 

Even as she spoke, the truth broke out of her soul and ran 
through her, running from her soul to his, like the flame of 



MOUNT MUSIC 205 

oil spilled upon clear water. A voice cried a warning in her 
heart. " Too late ! " she answered it with triumph. 
" Darling ! " said Larry, holding her close. 

#4^ «U. .U. •it* aUf 

The sunset 

" bloomed and withered on the hill 
Like any hill -flower " ; 

but long those two stood by the Druid stone, knowing, perhaps, 
the best moment that life could give them, facing the dying 
radiance with hearts that were full of sunrise. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

Doctor Francis Mangan, driving his car at something even 
more than his usual high rate of speed, to the Parochial 
House, a mile or so from the town of Cluhir, what time the 
sun's last rays were falling upon the Druid stone on Cnochan 
an Ceoil Sidhe, would have been far from pleased had he seen 
what the sun then saw. On their knees by the Tober an 
Sidhe, Larry and Christian were looking into the tiny cave 
in which the fairy water rose, and were giving each to each 
their plighting word, the old word that they had known 
since they were children : 

" While water stands in Tubber an shee, 
My heart in your hands, your heart in me." 

and, observing scrupulously the prescribed rite, were drinking 
a mouthful of the water, each from the other's hand. 

Dr. Mangan would probably have said that it was all 
children's nonsense, and that it was easier to break a promise 
than to keep it, but it may be asserted with tolerable certainty 
that he would not have been pleased. 

He was a strong and able driver, and his big car whirled up 
Father Greer's neat and narrow drive, holding undeviatingly 
the crown of the high-cambered track, and stopped dead 
at the front door of the Parochial House. 

That Spirit of the Nation to whom allusion has occasionally 
been made in these pages, was by now well accustomed to 
the discouragement that she had ever received from the 
two young lovers whose betrothal she had been powerless 
to forbid. She had fled from the benign fairy influences 
of the Tober an Sidhe ; but now, full of hope, she was 
hovering with wide-spread wings over the Parochial House, 

206 



MOUNT MUSIC 207 

and. as its door was opened by Father Greer's elderly and ugly 
housekeeper, the Spirit folded her wings and slipped past 
her, as by a familiar path, into the priest's sitting-room. 

Father Greer was " inside," the elderly and ugly house- 
keeper said ; " would the Doctor sit in the parlour a minute 
and he'd come down ? " 

The Doctor " sat " as requested, in the parlour, noting, 
as he had often noted before, its arid asceticism, wondering 
how any man could stand the life of a priest, respecting the 
power that could enable a man to dispense with all the things 
that, in his opinion — which, by the way, he pronounced 
" oping-en " — made life worth living. 

Father Greer came imperceptibly into the room while the 
Doctor was still pondering upon the hardness of the black 
horsehair-covered armchair in which he was seated. 

** Why, Doctor, this is an unexpected pleasure ! I heard 
you were away," the priest said, laying a limp hand in the 
Doctor's big fist. 

"So I was too. I was summoned to a consultation. 
That's what I'm come to you about. Father. It's old 
Prendergast. I'm thinking he won't last much longer." 

" D'ye mean Daniel ? The Member ? " 

" I do." 

Father Greer took his thin nose, with the nostrils edged 
with red, between his finger and thumb, and pinched it 
slowly downwards several times. 

** Well, what then ? " he said at length. 

** That's the point," said the Big Doctor, looking at the 
priest's pale and bumpy forehead, and trying in vain to catch 
his eye. ** You know that young Coppinger's name was 
sent up by our local Committee four years ago, and the Party 
approved it. 

" I wonder were they in the right ! " said Father Greer, 
still pinching his nose, and looking up at the Doctor over his 
knuckles. 

" I don't see who we could find that'd do better," said Dr. 
Mangan, apologetically. ** He's well off, and he holds 
strong Nationalist oping-ens ; and then, of course, he's a 
Catholic." 

" I'm told he didn't go to Mass since he came home " ; 
Father Greer let the statement fall without expression. 



2o8 MOUNT MUSIC 

" Ah well, he's only just back from France. Give him a 
little time, and he'll come to himself," said the Doctor, still 
apologetic. 

** I understand he's been pamting Miss Christian Talbot- 
Lowry's portrait," pursued Father Greer, with limpid 
simplicity. " Fm told she's as pretty a young girl as there 
is in this neighbourhood." 

Whether this slight prod of the mahout's ankus was, or 
was not, intentional, it is not easy to say, but it took instant 
effect upon the Big Doctor. 

** There are other pretty young girls in the neighbourhood 
besides Christian Lowry," he said sharply. ** And maybe 
prettier ! I don't think it would give us much trouble to 
find one that Larry Coppinger would be well satisfied with, 
and one that's in the bosom of the Church, too ! " 

*' I greatly deplore mixed m.arriages," said Father Greer ; 
permitting his eyes to meet those of Dr. Mangan. "I 
had hoped that in the case of this young man beneficial 
influences might have been brought to bear " 

'* If you want to put a spoke in that wheel," interrupted 
the Doctor with eagerness, *' you'll support his nomination. 
I'll undertake to say there won't be much talk of mixed 
marriages then ! " 

Father Greer's small eyes again rested for a second on the 
Doctor's broad face, with its strong, overhanging brows 
and heavy under-jaw, and drew his own conclusions from 
the confident smile that showed the white teeth under the 
drooping, black moustache that had still scarcely a grey hair 
in it. 

" I was thinking that might be what he was after ! " thought 
Father Greer. " Well, he's a good warrant to play his hand 
well, and more unsuitable things have occurred before now. 

Yet, didn't I hear something ! " Even in thought 

Father Greer observed a studied mildness and moderation, 
and there were contingencies which might remain unformu- 
lated until they crystallised into certainty. 

*' I'll think it over, Doctor," he said. " I'm inchned to 
your view of the case, and I might be disposed to advocate 
the candidature of your nominee. But," — here Father Greer 
sniffed several times, indicating that a humorous aspect of 



MOUNT MUSIC 209 

the case had occurred to him, ** what will we do if he turns 
* sour-face,' as they say, on us ? " 

This euphuism, which had been adopted by some of the 
more extreme of the Nationalist party to indicate members 
of the opposing communion, was received by Dr. Mangan 
as an apt and entertaining quotation on the part of his clergy- 
man. 

** No fear, no fear ! '* he said, laughing jovially, ** but 
if you'll allow me to say so, I think a good deal depends on 
this business going through." 

The Spirit of the Nation smiled also ; it was evident to 
her that these ministers of hers were conscientiously intent 
on doing her pleasure, and, leaving them with confidence, 
she spread her wide wings and followed the broad stream of 
the river down the valley in the direction of Mount Music. 

Dr. Mangan drove home as swiftly and capably as was his 
wont. It had been fair-day in Cluhir, and the people from 
the country were slowly and reluctantly forsaking the en- 
joyments of the town. Large women piled voluminously 
on small carts, each with a conducting little boy and a labour- 
ing little donkey somewhere beneath her ; men in decent 
blue cloth garments, whose innate respectability must have 
suffered acutely from the erratic conduct of the limbs inside 
them ; wandering knots of cattle, remotely attended by the 
wearers of blue cloth aforesaid ; horses carting themselves 
and their owners home, with entire self-control and good 
sense ; and, anchored in the tide of traffic, the ubiquitous 
beggar-women, their filthy hands proff"ering matches, green 
apples, bootlaces, their strident tongues mastering the noises 
of the street, their rapacious, humorous eyes observant of 
all things. All these did Dr. Mangan encounter and 
circum.vent, frustrating their apparent determination to 
commit suicide by those diverse methods of abuse, cajolery, 
and, on the part of the car, mechanical activity, that formed 
an important part of the necessary equipment of an Irish 
motorist of the earlier time. Nevertheless, the more 
intimate portion of his brain was deeply engaged in 
those labyrinths of minor provincial intrigue in which so 
many able intellects spend themselves, for want of wider 
opportunity. 

Mrs. Mangan was in the kitchen, where, indeed, she was 

o 



2IO MOUNT MUSIC 

not infrequently to be found, when the Doctor came in by 
the back-door from the yard. 

" I want you, Annie," he said, shouldering his enormous bulk 
along the narrow passage, and treading heavily on the cat, who, 
her mystic meditations thus painfully interrupted, vanished 
in darkness, uttering the baleful cry of her kind, that is so 
inherently opposed to the blended forgiveness and apology 
tnat give poignancy to a dog's reproach for a similar injury. 

'* Look here, Annie. Before I forget it, I want you to 
take the car on Saturday — I'll want it myself to-morrow — 
and call upon Miss Coppinger. Barty can drive you. I 
got a wire awhile ago, and I have to go on the nine o'clock 
to-night to Broadhaven. It's that unfortunate Prendergast 
the Member. There's nothing can be done for the poor 
fellow, but whether or no, I must go." 

" They'll not be satisfied till they have you dead, too, 
dragging at you ! " protested Mrs. Mangan. *'What non- 
sense they have, and you there only this morning ! On 
earth, what can you do more for him ? " 

** They think more of me, my dear, than you do ! '* said 
the Doctor, cheerfully. " Be hstening, now, to what I'm 
saying. You're to be as civil as be damned to old Frederica, 
and tell Barty he's to fix up with Larry to come here — what 
day is this to-day is ? Thursday ? — ^Tell him I'll be in on 
Sunday afternoon, and I want to talk to him on very special 
business. Now, will you remember that ? '* 

He repeated his commands, as people will who have learnt, 
as most Doctors must learn, the fallibility of the human 
memory and its infinite powers of invention and substitution. 

Mrs. Mangan listened obediently and promised attention. 
Although in matters to which she attached slight importance, 
such as the proportions of a prescription, her memory was 
liable to betray her, in other aff"airs, it had the cast-iron 
accuracy of the peasant, and without having been privileged 
with the Doctor's full confidence, she was probably deeper 
in it than he was aware. 

While still these intentions with regard to young Mr. St. 
Lawrence Coppinger were whirling in the air above him, 
as a lasso swirls and circles before it secures its victim, that 
young man was, it is no exaggeration to say, staggering home 
under the weight of his happiness. After the sacrament at 



MOUNT MUSIC 211 

the Tober an Sidhe he and Christian had gone from the 
hill, hand in hand, like two children. In silence they had 
gone through the dark wood, and almost in silence had made 
their mutual farewells in the fragrant shadov/ of the pines. 

When the soul is tuned to its highest it cannot find an 
interpreter. The lips can utter only broken sounds, patheti- 
cally inadequate to express emotions that may, in some future 
sphere, make themselves known in terms other than are 
permitted to us. There is an inner radiance that is beyond 
thought, that might conceivably utter itself in music or in 
colour, but that can no more be translated into words than 
can the radiance of the mid-day sun be more than indicated 
by earthly painters with earthly pigments. 

So it was with Larry and Christian. It chances now and 
then on this old, and prosaic, and often tearful earth that 
some kindly spirit leaves the door of Paradise a little open, 
and two happy people — though sometimes it is only one — 
are caught inside for a time, and come out, as Larry did, 
bewildered, dazzled, wandering back to earth, he scarcely 
knew how, saying, drunkenly, to himself : 

'* Good Lord ! She is so bright to-night ! " 
as the blackbird said, who was "blowing his bugle to one far 
bright star." 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

Old, prosaic, and often tearful, though this earth may be, 
few are anxious to hasten their departure from it, and Daniel 
Prendergast, Esq., M.P., abetted by the ministrations of that 
able consultant. Dr. Mangan, ** hung on," as his friends 
put it, with unexpected tenacity to his share of the world. 
And, so far reaching are the etheric cords that are said to 
bind us all together, Mr. Prendergast's grip of his sorry and 
suffering life bestowed upon Larry and Christian three days 
to be spent within the confines of Paradise. 

This may seem an over-statement when it is recorded that 
their next meeting was at 7 a.m. at a cubbing meet of the 
hounds, which occurred on the morning following on Larry's 
discovery that the entree to Paradise had been his for the 
asking ; it is, however, no more than the truth. Christian 
had exacted a promise from him that no word was to be said 
to any other of the high contracting parties until Monday, 
and, as they rode in at the Castle Ire gates, the matter was 
still under debate. 

" Three days we must have, just three, with this secret 
hidden between us like a pearl in an oyster-shell ! Larry, 
you know I can keep a secret ! " 

** And you think I can't ! " said Larry, affronted. 

'* I don't think, I know it ! But you must try ! Don't 

forget I've got to week-end at the " she named people 

who lived in the next county. " No one shall be told until 
I come home ! " 

This was when they were riding to the meet. Larry had 
brought over Joker, the bay horse, for her and he was himself 

212 



MOUNT MUSIC 213 

riding a small grey four-year-old mare, on whose education 
as a hunter he was entering. It was one of those gorgeous 
mornings of late September, when everything is intense in 
colour and in sentiment. A light white frost was melting, in 
the first rays of the sun, to a silver dew, that twinkled on grass 
and bush and twig. Now and then a beech leaf, prematurely 
gold, came spinning down in the still air ; from high places 
of heaven a tiny gabble of music, cold, and shrill, and sweet, 
told of the songs of the larks at those heavenly gates within 
which Larry's and Christian's spirits were dwelling. 

" Yes ! " Christian repeated, as they rode tranquilly along 
on the grass beside one of the long Castle Ire avenues, " it 
shall remain a secret as long as possible, unprofaned by the 
vulgar ! It's like this morning ; the dew's on it still. Larry, 
you've got to try ! " 

" Got to try, have I } " said Larry, beaming at her 
fatuously. 

The horses were sidling close to one another after the 
manner of stable companions ; Larry put his hand on the 
bay horse's withers and gazed into Christian's laughing eyes, 
while the blue of the southern Irish sky uttered its strong, 
splendid note of colour behind the pale rose of her face, and 
the ineffable freshness of the morning thrilled in him. 

'* If you look at me Hke that in general society" he declared, 
** I shall cither give it away on the spot — or burst ! Look 
here, here's the measured-mile gallop ; I'll race you to the 
hall door ! If I get in first, I shall tell everyone we're 
engaged ! " 

*' Done ! " said Christian, instantly shortening her reins ; 
** but I back Joker ! " 

She touched Joker with her heel and the big horse sprang, 
at the hint, into a gallop. Quickly as he started, Rayleen, 
the grey mare (whose name, being interpreted, is Little 
Star), being ever concentrated for instant effort, as is 
the manner of small and well-bred four-year-olds, was up 
to his shoulder in a couple of bounds, even, in the flame of 
her youth and enthusiasm, she drove ahead of Joker's ordered 
strides, and led him for awhile. Larry's laugh of triumph, 
that the wind tossed back to her, was not needed to rouse 
Christian to emulation. Any hint of a race, any touch of a 
contest, appealed to her as instantly as to Rayleen, and she was 



2i4 MOUNT MUSIC 

racing for that secret that was like a pearl. Sitting very still 
she touched Joker again with her heel and spoke to him. 
There was in her the magnetism that can fire a horse to his 
best, by some mystery, compound of sympathy and stimula- 
tion, that has no outward manifestation. Joker's great* 
shoulders worked under her as he lengthened and quickened 
his beautiful, rhythmic stride. The wind of the pace 
whistled in her ears and snatched at her hair. She crammed 
her hat over her forehead, laughing with the joy of battle. 
She was level with Larry now. Now she was passing him, 
and the little grey strove in vain to hold her place. Gallant 
as she was, what could she do against a raking, trained galloper, 
well over sixteen hands, and nearly thoroughbred ? 

The smooth mile of shining grass was annihilated, wiped 
out in a few whirling minutes. Joker had but just fairly 
settled down to go when the end of the race was at hand. 
Had he been a shade less of a gentleman than he was, 
Christian, and the snaffle in which she was riding him, would 
hardly have stopped him, as did their joint efforts, on the 
gravel in front of the goal that Larry had given her. 

Hunts come, and hunts go, and are forgotten. Horses, 
the best and dearest of them, fade, in some degree, from 
remembrance ; where are the snows of yester year, and where 
the great gallops that we rode when we were young } But 
here and there something defies the mists of memory, and 
remains, bright and imperishable as a diamond. I believe 
that for Christian that mile of sun and wind and speed and 
flight, with her lover thundering at her heels, will remain 
ever vivid, one of the moments that are of the incalculable 
bounty of Chance ; moments that earth can never equal, 
nor Heaven better. 

The hounds and staff were waiting at the farther end of the 
long front of Castle Ire, when Larry and Christian made 
their somewhat sensational entrance upon the scene. ' 

" Joker wins, by a length and a half," said Bill Kirby, 
judicially, "and a very pretty race. I never saw a prettier, 
on any sands, on any jackasses, on any Bank Holiday ! I 
suppose this is how people always fetch up at meets in France ? 
It's not come in in this benighted country yet." 

** His fault ! " said Christian, breathless and glowing. 
** He dar'd me ! Where are you going to draw ? " 



MOUNT MUSIC 215 

" The ash-pit and the fowl-houses," repHed Bill, picking 
up his reins. " Then the backstairs, and the kitchenmaid's 
bedroom. Judith and Mrs. Brady say he's taking all the 
fowl, and they're going to lay poison — I don't mean the 
fowl " 

** Isn't he bright this morning ? " said Judith, looking down 
upon the party from an upper window, effectively arrayed 
in one of those lacy and lazy garments that invite, while they 
repudiate, society. *' No, I'm not coming out. Too early 
for me. Come in and eat something — breakfast or lunch, 
anything — when you've done enough." 

The hounds moved on and were soon busy in the screens 
of glossy laurel round the house. Other riders arrived. A 
fox was found, if not in the kitchenmaid's bedroom in some 
spot of almost equal intimacy, and the Hunt surged in and 
through yards, and haggards, outhouses, and gardens, the 
hounds over-running all the complicated surroundings of an 
Irish country-house, while every grade of domestic, forsaking 
his or her lawful occupation, joined in the chase. 

Christian had betaken herself to a point on the avenue 
remote from the fray. A run, she told herself, would have 
tranquilised her, and made things seem more normal, but 
there was no prospect of one. ** I'll wait till this rat-hunt is 
over," she thought, letting Joker stroll across the park 
towards a little lake, shining amidst bracken and bushes, 
a jewel dropped from heaven. A couple of stiff-necked swans 
floated in motionless trance upon it ; black water-hens 
flapped in flashing, splashing flight to safety as Christian 
came near ; a string of patchwork coloured mandarin- 
ducks propelled themselves in jerks towards her, confident 
that any human being meant food. Two gigantic turquoise 
dragon-flies rose, with a dry crackle of talc-like wings, from 
a dead log under Joker's feet One of them swung round the 
horse's head, and lit on his shaven neck. It brooded there, 
apparently unperceptive of the difference of this resting 
place from the one that it had abandoned ; its dull globes 
of eyes looked as if sight was the last purpose for which they 
were intended. Joker stretched his long neck to nibble a 
willow twig, and the blue myster}% rising, remained poised 
over him for another moment of meditation, before it sailed 
away, sideways, on its own obscure occasions. 



2i6 MOUNT MUSIC 

Christian sat in the sunshine, and thought about Larry, 
and wondered. She knew now that what she felt for him was 
no new thing. It had been with her always, not merely 
since the painting of her portrait, but always, unacknowledged 
yet implicit, ever since that first day when he had rescued 
her from Richard. Her intensely criticising, analytic brain 
refused to surrender to vague emotion. She was resolved 
to understand herself, to rationalise her overthrow. It was 
the difference, for which that half-hour of sunset was 
responsible, in the degree of what she felt, that bewildered 
her. Yesterday, she told herself, it was a deep, but well- 
controlled and respectable little stream. To-day it was a 
flood. " I must keep my feet," she thought ; "I must not 
be swept away ! " The thought of him was sometimes 
overwhelming, like the fire of a summer noon ; sometimes 
meditative, and wound about with memories, like twilight, 
and the song of the thrush ; even at its least, it had been the 
glow that lives behind the northern horizon in midsummer, 
witnessing to the hidden glory, during darkness, or the wistful 
glimmer of stars. Now, while the sun went higher, and all the 
hum of life rose, and the cr'es of the water-birds, the buzz of 
insects over the bright lake, became more insistent, and the 
blue and lovely morning spread and strengthened round her, 
criticism and analysis failed. She could only think of him, 
helplessly, saying to herself what she had once heard a 
peasant woman say : *' My heart'd open when I thinks of 
him." 

Across the park came repeated notes from the horn, the ba}^- 
ing of hounds, and the screams that celebrate with orthodox 
excitement the death of a fox. The rat-hunt was over. 
Joker lifted his spare, aristocratic head from the grass, and 
listened, with a wisp of dewy green stuff in his mouth. 
Christian looked at her watch. It was early still, not eight 
o'clock. A grey horse and its rider came forth from the dark 
grove of laurels. Larry was looking for her. She sighed ; 
she did not know why. She thought of the old Mendelssohn 
open-air part-song : 



t( 



The talk of the lovers in silence dies, 
They weep, yet they know not why tears fill their 
eyes." 



MOUNT MUSIC 217 

The old, absurd words, that she had so often laughed at. 
She laughed again, but at herself, and sat still, watching the 
grey mare coming lightly over the sunny grass to her. 

" They got him ! " Larry shouted, as he came near. *' The 
brute wouldn't run for 'em ! Too full of hen, I suppose ! 
They're going on now to the gorse in the high paddock. 
Why did you come away here .'* " 

" Because I'm illogical. I like hunting, and I hate catching 
what I hunt. Besides, I wanted to think." 

** Rotten habit," said Larry. *' I w^on't have you changing 
your mind ! " 

Christian looked at him, and sighed again. He was on 
her right, and she took her hunting-crop in her left hand, 
with the reins, and stretched out her right hand to him. 
He caught it, and kissed her slender WTist above the glove. 
There came back to Christian, with a rush, the remembrance 
of the May morning at the kennels when he had kissed her 
wrist. That had been the left wrist. The kiss had meant 
more to her than it had to him. Now, as she met his eyes, 
she knew that she and he stood on level ground. 

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel } Those even, 
who pin it down> and set it up in a glass case in the cause of 
science and for the edification of an inquisitive public, are 
not wholly to be commended, praiseworthy though their 
intentions may be. Let a rule of silence, therefore be 
observed, as far as may be. What this boy and girl said to 
each other, is their secret, not ours. 

The gorse in the high paddock held a fox ; several, in 
fact, a lady having reared a fine young family there without any 
anxieties as to their support, thanks to the votive off^erings 
of crows and rabbits, obsequiously laid on her doorstep, by her 
best friend, and her most implacable enemy, Mr .William Kirby, 
M.F.H. In recognition, no doubt, of these attentions, the 
lady in question permitted one of her sons to afford a little 
harmless pleasure to her benefactor, and this, having included 
a lively gallop of some three miles, ceased in a plantation 
where was the place of safety that had been indicated to the 
beginner, and ceased appositely, at an hour that made a late 
breakfast at Castle Ire a matter obvious, even imperative, 
for those w^ho were not prepared to await, in patient starvation, 
that very inferior repast, an early lunch. 



2i8 MOUNT MUSIC 

Young Mrs. Kirby had not lost, with matrimony, the habit 
of having her own way. 

" No, Christian, you're not going home. You haven't 

seen Baby, and he really looks rather sweet in his new " (a 

negligible matter, whatever the attire the formula being 
unvaried) — "and, besides," continued young Mrs. Kirby, 
with decision, " I want to talk to you." 

Being talked to by Judith was an adequate modem 
equivalent for an interview with the " Jailer's Daughter," 
as a method of obtaining information. 

Christian trembled for the secret of the pearl. 

" Bill tells me," began Judith, after the late breakfast had 
been disposed of, settling herself luxuriously in an armchair 
in the round tower-room which she had made her own sitting- 
room and lighting a cigarette, '* that our tenants — I mean 
Papa's people — are getting rather nasty. Of course, there was 
that disgraceful business when your marc was killed but I 
don't mean that — Bill thinks old Fairfax was right in advising 
Papa to do nothing about that — but about this archaic non- 
sense of feudal feeling and not selling the property. Of 
course he's bound to lose by the sale, but the longer he waits 
the worse it gets." 

" I don't think it's only feudal feeling — he says he can't 
afford to sell," began Christian. 

Oh, I know all that, my dear," interrupted Judith ; 
* the infernal mortgagees, and the damned charges, and that 
blackguard rebel, young Mangan, who cut the ground from 
under his feet,' and so on. I've heard it all from Papa, 
exactly five thousand times. But the point is that there was a 
meeting at Pribawn, with the priest in the chair, and there 
were furious speeches, and they talked of boycotting Papa, 
and some steps ought to be taken. It's an intolerable 
nuisance being boycotted, if it's nothing else, and most 
expensive. I was with the O'Donnells that time when they 
were boycotted — up at five every morning to milk the cows 
and light the kitchen fire, and having to get every earthly 
thing by post from London ! " 

*' I'll take as many steps as you like," said Christian, ** if 
you'll only tell me where to take them." 

Judith took her cigarette out of her mouth, and blew a ring 






MOUNT MUSIC 2IQ 

of smoke, regarding her younger sister the while with a 
shrewd and wary blue eye. 

** I've often said to you, my dear child," she began, in a 
voice that seemed intended to usher in a change of subject, 
*' that if you icoii't take an interest in men, they won't take an 
interest in you." 

" Then why repeat the statement ? " said Christian, 
wondering what Judith was working up to, and girding herself 
for battle ; *' true and beautiful though it is ! " 

** Because, my dear — and I may say I speak as one having 
authority and not as the scribes — in my opinion, and judging by 
what I perceived with about a quarter of one eye at breakfast, 
you have only to hold up your little finger, in a friendly and 
encouraging manner, and our young friend and relative, 
Mr. Coppinger, will — I admit I don't quite know what people 
do with little fingers in these cases, something affection- 
ate, no doubt ! " 

" I thought your authority would have extended to little 
fingers ! " broke in Christian, sparring for wind, and wishing 
she were not facing the window ; "in any case, I fail to see 
what mine, in this instance, has to say to our being 
boycotted ? " 

** My dear girl," said Judith, leaning forward, and speaking 
with solemnity, " the priests won't want to fall foul of anyone 
with as much money as Larry ! " 

Christian was silent ; she had not anticipated quite so 
direct an intervention in her personal affairs as was now being 
discovered, and she felt that her pearl was melting in the 
fierce solvent of Judith's interest and curiosity. 

" I know it's a bore about his religion, and his politics are 
more than shaky, but you know, in a way, it's rather lucky, 
in view of the mess Papa's got everything into, to have some- 
one on that side," went on Judith, who was far too practical 
to be influenced by that malign Spirit of the Nation who had 
so persistently endeavoured to establish herself as one of the 
family at Mount Music. " All I'm afraid of is that Papa may 
begin to beat the Protestant drum and wave the Union Jack 1 
Such nonsense ! The main thing is that Larry himself is 
quite all right ! " 

"I'm sure he would be gratified by your approval ! " 
Judith's patronage was somewhat galling ; Judith, who was 



220 MOUNT MUSIC 

quite pleased with Bill Kirby ! — Good, excellent Bill, but 

still ! Christian's colour betrayed her, and she knew it, 

and knowing also the remorseless cross-examination that 
the betrayal would immediately provoke, she decided to 
anticipate it. 

" As a matter of fact," she went on, " he — we " she 

hated the crudity of the statement. 

** You're engaged ! " swooped Judith, with the speed of a 
hawk. ** Excellent girl ! " 

Christian found the commendation offensive. 

" I assure you it's quite without either political or religious 
bias ! " she said defiantly. She had failed to keep her secret, 
but she went down with her flags flying. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

Barty Mangan fulfilled his father's behests, and on Saturday^ 
he drove his mother to Coppinger's Court. 

He drove a motor well ; not brilliantly, like Larry, because 
Barty did nothing brilliantly, but capably and gently, with 
consideration for donkey-carts, with respect for horses, 
with kindness towards pedestrians, even without animosity 
towards cur-dogs. The surprising aspect of the fact was 
that he should be able, in any degree, to handle a car, the 
control of energy being an effort foreign to his nature. What 
in his mother was laziness, was with him transmuted to 
languor ; his father's vigour and decision became in Barty 
a sort of tepid obstinacy, and the Doctor's fierce and fighting 
allegiance to his Church reappeared in his son as a peevish 
conscientiousness, that had provoked a friend of the family 
to say : " Barty's a dam' bad solicitor ! He'll take up no case 
but what pleases him, and he'll touch nothing if he thinks 
he'll make money out of it ! " Mk] 

'* Ah ! He was always a fool for himself ! " replied, 
heartily, Barty's great-aunt, Mrs. Cantwell, to whom the 
comment had been off'ered 

One aspect of the practical aflPairs of life, and one only, 
had power to rouse Barty from the dreamy passivity which 
had excited Great- Aunt Cantwell 's contempt. Where 
Ireland and Irish politics came into question, some deep 
spring of sentiment and enthusiasm in him was touched, 
and all the force that he was capable of became manifest. 
All the strength and tenacity that were in him were con- 
centrated in the cause of Nationalism ; Ireland was his 
religion, and he felt himself to be one of her priesthood. 

221 



222 MOUNT MUSIC 

There are some gentle natures, with deep affections, but 
without much brain-power in whom an idea, a mental 
attitude, and especially a personal liking or disliking, is 
very easily implanted ; yet, easily as it is introduced, once it 
has taken hold it can never be dislodged. The intellect 
has not energy enough for reconstruction ; it accepts too 
readily, and, once saturated, the stain is indelible, because 
there is no power of growth. 

Behold, then, Barty, gentle and obstinate, timid and an 
enthusiast, loving, yet implacable, seated in Larry's studio, 
regarding with submissive adoration the being compact of 
the antithesis of his qualities, and ready, for that being's sake, 
to make any sacrifice save that of renouncing him. 

The being in question, wholly and feverishly absorbed in 
his own affairs of the heart, while bound by his oath to say 
nothing about them, brought himself with difficulty to attend 
to the retrospect of financial operations, hitherto postponed, 
but now insisted upon, by his man of business. 

*' Oh, first-rate, old chap — quite all right — good busi- 
ness ! " With these, and similar interjections, did the 

employer ratify and approve of his agent's transactions. 
Barty's legal training abetted his conscientiousness, and 
in his mild and monotonous brogue he laid before Larry a 
statement of his money matters that was as unsparing in 
detail as it was accurate. 

" So now you see," he concluded, *T didn't act without 
careful consideration, and I consulted me fawther, besides 
others of experience in such matters. I believe there are 
people who are saying we sold too cheap to the tenants. 
But, on the other hand, the money's good and safe now ; 
you have a certain and secure income, and you're in a very 
favourable position in the eyes of the people." 

Larry pulled himself from reverie to ejaculate further 
general approval ; then he rose from the table, upon which 
Barty's books had been displayed, and drawing forward an 
easel on which was a framed canvas covered by some vivid 
oriental drapery, he arranged it carefully with regard to the 
light. Then he caught away the drapery, stepping back, 
quickly, from the easel. 

*' What do you think of that, Barty?" 

Barty, who was short-sighted, stood up and adjusted his 



MOUNT MUSIC 223 

eye-glasses, while he endeavoured to readjust his ideas, and 
to abandon the realms of business for those of art. 

"But you know, Larry," he apologised, " I know nothing 
about paintings. You wouldn't know what tomfoolery I 
might'nt " The npology broke off abruptly. 

" Oh, God ! " he muttered, feeling, in the shock of meeting 
her eyes, as if a sudden wind had swept his mind bare of 
business, of Larry, of all things save Christian, ** it's herself ! " 

His sallow face had turned a dull red. He moved back a 
step or two, and then went forward again. The easel was 
low, and Barty was veiy tall ; he went on his knees, and 
gazed, speechless. 

Thus might a devout Russian have greeted a lost icon, 
and worshipped, silently, a re-found saint. Larry, equally 
absorbed, as any painter will understand, in the contempla- 
tion of his work, took no heed of its effect upon Barty. 

" By Jove ! " he murmured, drawing a big breath, " I 
wonder if I did it ! I don't feel as if I had — something 

outside me " He stopped ; he felt as if Christian herself 

were there ; he felt as if her arms were round him, his head 
upon her bosom. He was giddy with emotion. Scarcely 
knowing what he did he walked across the room, and stared 
out of the window, looking across his own woods to the 
woods of Mount IVIusic. 

That morning he had said good-bye to her for three long 
days. She had met him at the old stepping stones across 
the Ownashee, and she had made him renew his promise 
of silence until her return ; he was sorry he couldn't tell 
old Barty ; but no matter, nothing mattered, except the 
marvel that she was his. He whispered adoration to her, 
breathing her name again and again, crowning it, as with a 
wreath, with those old, familiar adjectives that had so lately 
become intense with new meaning for him ; he forgot Barty, 
forgot even her portrait, as he thought of herself. 

Barty came over to him ; the two young men, with their 
common secret, suspected by neither, a secret that for one 
was a living ecstasy, and for the other an impossible ideal, 
stood silent, full of their own thoughts. Barty spoke first. 

" It's a wonder to me ! I didn't think you could paint 
like that, Larry ! I didn't think anyone could ! " 



224 MOUNT MUSIC 

" Well, no more I can, really. This was a sort of a miracle 
and it painted itself." 

The same impulse moved them both, and they returned 
to the easel on which was the picture, but with a quick move- 
ment Larry flung the drapery over the frame again and hid 
the picture. 

" Didn't you say you had a message for me from your 
father?" 

Barty accepted the change of subject with his accustomed 
resignation to Larry's moods. 

'* I have. He said he'd be at home to-morrow afternoon 
— that's Sunday — and he wanted to see you on very special 
business." 

" Do you know what about ? " Larry asked, without 
interest, while he arranged the many -coloured silken drapery 
in effective folds over the picture. 
** I believe old Prendergast's dying." 
Barty hesitated ; then, remembering that his father had 
not enjoined secrecy, he rushed into his subject. ** Larry, 
I believe the chance we've been waiting for is come — or as 
good as come ! " 

*' Do you mean that it's Prendergast the Member who's 
dying ? Do you mean my getting into Parliament } " 

Larry swung round on Barty, and fired the questions at 
him, quick as shots from a revolver. 

The colour rose again in Barty 's face. His dark, short- 
sighted eyes, that were set on Larry, had a sudden glow in 
them. He nodded. 

** He's likely dead by now ! Oh Larry ! " he cried, panting 
in his eagerness. " Maybe the chance has come at last ! 
I believe you might be the man Ireland wants ! I believe 
you might take Parnell's place ! Me fawther says you're 
certain to be nominated, and there's no opposition, of course. 
Anyhow, if there were, itself, you'd go in flying, just the same ! 
You're the man we're all waiting for ! Larry, old cock ! 
The day will come when I'll be bragging that I was the one 
first gave you the notion to go into politics ! " 

Larry was gazing at his man of business, whose aspect, 
it may be conceded, was at this moment singularly at variance 
with the usual conception of such a functionary. The man 
of business gazed back at him, the glow intensifying behind 



MOUNT MUSIC 225 

his eye-glasses and gathering energy from the answering 
gleam in Larry's eyes. 

" The Bloody Wars ! " uttered Larry, slowly and quite 
irrelevantly, and with great emphasis. " By all the crosses 
in a yard of check ! Let me hold on to something and 
think ! This is a game and a half ! I must think furiously ! '* 

" Do not ! " exclaimed Barty ; " don't think at all ! Don't 
be wasting time like that ! No man ever had a greater chance 
than this ! Lep at it, Larry, old lad ! Give me the word 
I want, and I'll wire the Doctor to-night — a message he'll 
understand, and no one else. Oh Larry ! " he implored, 
'* don't cry off now ! You've pots of money ; you can do 
any damn thing you like ! If you refuse this chance now 
you'll only regret it the once, and that'll be all your life ! '* 

Then did that mysterious and mighty agency, the warp 
that a mind has received in childhood, come to reinforce 
the enthusiasms and ambitions of youth, and urge Larry to 
assent. That other and nobler Spirit of the Nation woke, 
and the passionate, irreconcilable voice, that had first spoken 
to him when he was a little boy, woke and uttered itself 
again, shouting to him its wild summons at a moment when 
the tide of life was running fiercest in him, when every 
emotion was at highest pressure and calling for great adventure. 

** All right, Barty, my son, I'm for it ! " said Larry, with 
the assumption of outward calm, when heart and pulses are 
pounding, that has been claimed as one of the assets of a 
public school education, and is, even without that advantage, 
the birthright of such as young Mr. Coppinger. 



CHAPTER XXX 

Larry bicycled up to the white chapel on the hill, to Second 
Mass, on the following morning. He rode fast through 
the converging groups of people, on foot, on outside cars, 
in carts, on horseback. It was four years since he had last 
attended a service there, and to many of the assembled con- 
gregation he had become a stranger. None the less there 
was no hesitation in any man's mind in identifying him ; 
these were people who knew a gentleman when they saw 
one, and the young owner of Coppinger's Court was the only 
gentleman ever to be seen at the white chapel on the hill. 

Therefore it was that Larry's right hand was seldom on 
his handle-bar, as he skimmed through the people, decent 
and dark-dressed in their Sunday best, who saluted with a 
long-established friendship and respect this solitary repre- 
sentative of their traditional enemies, the landlords. 

There cannot be in the world a people more unfailingly 
church-going than those sons and daughters of Rome who 
are bred in Southern Ireland. Larry looked down, from his 
pew in the gallery, at the close ranks of kneeling figures, 
and thought with compunction how long it was since he 
had been in a church, and thanked God that he had come 
home to his own people;, and that their religion was his. 
He followed the words of the service with a new realisation 
of their ancient beauty. He trembled with an unfamiliar 
emotion, as, in the charged silence of the crowded chapel, 
the bell tinkled and the censer clashed, sounds that have in 
them at such moments a heart-shaking power, magnetic, 
mystical. He heard nothing of the sermon ; in his eager 
mind two thoughts raced side by side, now one, now the 

226 



MOUNT MUSIC 227 

other, leading. These two marvels that had befallen. That 
Christian should love him ; this had the mastery, irradiating 
all ; but with the vivid sense of fellowship and communion 
that the service brought the other thought, the old dream 
that was coming true of standing for these people, of making 
their interests his, their welfare his care, moved him 
profoundly. 

Outside in the chapel yard, after the service, the congrega- 
tion was in no hurry to disperse. Larry looked about him, 
and found many friendly eyes set on him. Larry, too, had 
a friendly heart, and he bethought him that, as a future M.P., 
he should lose no opportunity of intercourse with his con- 
stituents. He recognised the solid presence of John Herlihy, 
an elderly farmer who had been one of the largest of his own 
late tenants, and he went across the yard to where he stood 
and shook hands with him. 

" Fine day, John ! Good and hot for the harvest ! Got 
your threshing done yet ? " 

" T'is very warm, sir," answered John Herlihy, correcting, 
as is invariable, Larry's employment of the vulgar adjective 
" hot " ; '' very warm entirely, and sure I have my corn 
threshed this ten days, the same as yourself ! " 

" Nothing hke taking time by the fetlock, is there, John ! '* 
chaffed Larry (who, until that moment, had been unaware 
that he possessed any corn) ; " it's a good harvest all round, 
isn't it ? " 

*' Weil, pretty fair, thank God ! " 

" And the country's quiet ? " 

** Never better, sir, never better ! " responded John 
Herlihy, weightily ; but something in his cool eyes, grey and 
wise as a parrot's, impelled Larry, in his new-born sense of 
responsibility, to further questioning. 

Mr. John Herlihy was a man of the order to whom the 
label " respectable " inevitably attaches itself (that adjective 
which acts as a touch-stone in the definition of class, and is 
a compliment up to a certain point, an offence higher up 
the scale) ; one of those sound and sensible and thrifty farmers 
who are the strength of Ireland, and are as the stones of a 
break-water, over which the storm-froth of the waters of 
politics sweeps unheeded. 

" Well," Larry went on, ** it wasn't a very nice way that 



228 MOUNT MUSIC 

those Carmodys up at Derrylugga treated Miss Christian 
Talbot-Lowry the other day ! Killing her mare under her, 
the cowardly blackguards ! " 

The grey parrot eyes scanned Larry, summing him up, 
determining how far he might be trusted, deciding that an 
oblique approach might be most advisable. 

*' Major Low^ry's a fine gentleman," said John Herlihy, 
largely ; " a fine, easy, grawver man ! I declare I was sorry 
to me heart when he gave up the hounds ! If it was to be 
only a scold or a curse from him, ye'd rather it, and to have 
he be goin' through the country ! " 

" Then what have people against him ? Good God ' " 
cried Larry, hotly. " It's too easy he is ! / wouldn't have 
let those devils oflF as easy as he did ! " 

" I heard the Priest and a few more, was above at Mount 
Music ere yesterday," said John Herlihy, in a slightly lowered 
voice, '* about the sale of the property they were, I b'lieve. 
You done well. Master Larry, you got quit o' the whole kit 
of us ! " 

Having thus shelved the controversial subject, Mr. Herlihy, 
laughing heartily at his own jest, moved towards his horse and 
car, that were hitched to the chapel gate, and let down the 
upturned side of the car. 

" Come ! Get up, woman ! Get up ! " he called to his 
wife, a prosperous lady, in a massive, blue, hooded cloak, 
who had been standing by the gate, patiently waiting his 
pleasure ; '* don't be delaying me this way ! " 

He winked at Larry, scrambling on to the car. 

" What tashpy he has ! " remarked Mrs. HerHhy, benign- 
antly, as Larry shook hands with her. 

*' Ah, you spoil him, Mrs. Herlihy ! You should dock 
his oats ! " said Larry, laughing into her jolly, round, red 
face, that was glistening with heat under the heavy cloth 
hood. " It's a grand hot day, isn't it ? " 

" 'Tis very warm, sir, indeed," corrected Mrs. Herlihy, 
as she mounted the car with an agility as competent, and as 
unexpected, as that of a trespassing cow confronted with a 
stone-faced bank. 

Larry went home, and continued a letter to Christian 
that he had begun over night. He told her of Barty's visit, 
and of all that it was likely to involve. He said that he was 



MOUNT MUSIC 229 

very lonely, and he believed she had been gone a year. Even 
Aunt Freddy had bolted off to Dublin, on urgent private 
affairs, which meant the dentist, as usual. He would go 
over to see Cousin Dick, only that he was absolutely bound 
to go into Cluhir. At this point he entered anew upon the 
subject of his political future, and what it meant to him. 
Of the fun he would have canvassing the electors. Christian 
would have to come round with him, and in very obdurate 
cases there was always the classical method of the Duchess 
of Devonshire to be resorted to ! Already, he said, he was 
frightfully interested in the whole show, and he meant — 
several pages were devoted by Larry to his intentions. 

Christian, far away in the County Limerick, received the 
letter with her early cup of tea, and, as she read it, felt her 
soul disquieted within her. The conjunction of the stars 
of Love and Politics presaged, she felt, disaster — as if the 
question of religion had not been complicating enough ! 
Even had her gift of envisaging a situation by the light of 
reason failed her, that spiritual aneroid, which, sensitive 
to soul-pressure, warned her intuitively of coming joy or 
sorrow, ill luck or good fortune, had fallen from set fair to 
stormy. She had gone to sleep with sunshine in her heart ; 
she awoke in clouds, dark and threatening. She read Larry's 
letter, and knew that the foreboding would come true. 

It is probable that no human being was ever less the prey 
of intuitions or presentiments than was young Mr. Coppinger, 
as he bicycled lightly into Cluhir along the solitary steam- 
rolled road of the district, a typical effort of Irish civilisation, 
initiated by Dr. Mangan, that had proposed to link Cluhir 
with the outer world, but had died, like a worn-out tramp, 
at the end of a few faltering miles, on the steps of the work- 
house hospital at Riverstown. The road ran along the bank 
of the great river, with nothing save a low fence and a foot- 
path between it and the water. The river was still and 
gleaming. Masses of dove-coloured cloud, with touches of 
silver-saffron where their lining showed through, draped the 
wide sky, in over-lapping folds. The planes of distance 
up the broad valley were graduated in tone by a succession 
of screens of luminous vapour that parcelled out the land- 
scape, taking away all colour save that bestowed by the 
transparent golden grey of the mist. The roofs of Cluhir 



230 MOUNT MUSIC 

made a dark profile in the middle distance, the lower part 
of the houses hidden in the steaming mist, and the beautiful 
outline of the tvv^in crests of Carrigaholt was like a golden 
shadow in the sky above them. The spire and the tower of 
the two churches of Cluhir, rose on either side of the pale 
radiance of the river, with the slender arch of the bridge 
joining them, as if to show in allegory their inherent oneness, 
their joint access to the water of life. Religion counted for 
but little with Larry in those days, yet as the wonder of 
beauty sank into his soul, that was ever thirsty for beauty, 
the thought of what it would mean for Ireland if the symbol 
of the linking bridge had its counterpart in reality sprang 
into his eager mind. Then he thought of himself and 
Christian, and knew that religion could never come between 
him and her, and, as the close-following thought of what 
these last days had brought, rose in his mind, the wonder of 
it overwhelmed him. He told himself that the only possible 
explanation of her caring for such as he, was that Narcissus- 
like, she had seen her own image reflected in his heart, and 
had fallen in love with it. The fancy attracted him ; he 
rode on, his mind set on a sonnet that should fitly enshrine 
the thought, and politics and religion, symbols and ideals, 
faded, as the stars go out when the sun comes. 

For the last couple of miles before Cluhir was reached, 
the road and the river ran their parallel course in a line that 
was nearly direct, and, from a long way off, Larry was aware 
of the figures of a man and woman and a dog, preceding 
him towards the town. He noted presently that the dog 
had passed from view, and then he saw the man and the woman 
hurry across the road and pass through the gateway of a 
field. He was soon level with the gate. There was a little 
knot of people just within the field, and in the moment of 
perceiving that the woman was Tishy Mangan, he also saw 
that a fierce fight was in progress between two dogs. 

" Oh, stop them, stop them ! " Tishy was screaming. 
" That's my father's dog, and he'll be killed ! " 

She belaboured the dogs, futilely, with her parasol. 

The man who was with her, a tall and elaborately well- 
dressed young gentleman with a red moustache, confined 
himself, very wisely, to loud exhortations to the remainder 
of the group, who were lads from the town, to call off their 



MOUNT MUSIC 231 

dog ; and the remainder of the group, with equal wisdom 
and greater candour, were unanimously asserting that they 
would be '* in dhread " to touch the combatants. The 
dogs were well matched — strong, yellow-red Irish terriers ; 
each had the other by the side of the throat, and each, with 
the deep, snuffling gurgles of strenuous combat, was tr}dng 
to better his hold on his enemy. 

Larry, swift in action as in thought, was off his bicycle 
and into the ring without a second of hesitation. 

" Catch your dog by the tail," he shouted to the boys, 
while he performed the like office for the Doctor's dog. 
" Now then ! Into the river with them ! ' 

The two dogs, fast in each other's jaws, were lifted, and 
were borne across the road to the edge of the footpath, 
below which the river ran, deep and strong. 

"Now then!" 

The two rough, yellow bodies were swung between Larry 
and his coadjutor. 

" Now ! Let 'em go ! " 

The dogs flew like chain-shot through the air, and, with a 
tremendous splash disappeared from view in the river. 
They rose to the surface still keeping their hold of one another, 
and sank again. A second time they rose without having 
loosened their grip, but at their third appearance they were 
apart. 

" Now boys ! Cruisht them well, or they'll be at it again 
when they land ! " 

The '* cruishting," which means pelting with stones, 
succeeded. The enemies landed at different points. Miss 
Mangan's charge was recaptured, his antagonist was stoned 
by his owners until out of range, and the incident closed. 

It was not, however, without result. 

" I think you never met Captain Cloherty, Mr. Cop- 
pinger ? " said Tishy, with a glance at Captain Cloherty 
that spoke disapproval. " He's not as useful in a fight as 
you are, though he is in the Army ! " 

** My branch of the service mends wounds, it doesn't 
go out of its way to get them ! " returned Captain Cloherty, 
composedly, " and I haven't any use for getting bitten." 

** Mr. Coppinger wasn't so nervous ! " retorted Miss 
Mangan, scorchingly, " and it's well for me he wasn't ! 



232 MOUNT MUSIC 

What'd I say to the Doctor if I had to tell him his pet dog was 
dead ? " 

*' Something else, I suppose ! " suggested Captain Cloherty, 
his red moustache lifting in a grin that Miss Mangan found 
excessively exasperating ; *' it wouldn't be the best time to 
tell the truth at all ! " 

" How funny you are ! " said Tishy, with a blighting 
glance. " It's easy to joke now, when Mr. Coppinger has 
done the work ! " 

She swept another glance of her grey eyes at Larry, very 
different from that that she had bestowed upon the callous 
Cloherty. 

Few young men object to exaltation at the expense of 
another, especially if that other has two or three inches the 
advantage in height, and they are themselves not unconscious 
of deserving. Larry led his bicycle and walked beside 
Tishy, and found pleasure in meeting her again after four 
years of absence. For one thing, she had become even better- 
looking than he remembered her — turned into a thundering 
handsome young woman, he thought — and it became him, 
as an artist, to be a connoisseur in such matters. 

** Oh, so you're going to see the Doctor, are you ?" she said, 
" I know he was expecting you." She hesitated. " I told 
him I thought I'd be at Mrs.Whelply's this afternoon. He — 
he might be surprised if he thought I had Tinker out, and 
that he was in a fight " 

" rU keep it dark," Larry said, reassuringly, while he 
wondered if the protecting darkness were also to envelop 
Captain Cloherty, R.A.M.C. He thought, on the whole, 
perhaps, yes. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

Major Talbot-Lowry had been in a passion for three days, 
and Lady Isabel, who had borne the storm alone, longed for 
Christian's return, as the lone keeper of a Hghthouse might 
long for the support of his comrade during a gale. 

Judith came to visit her parents on Monday, but Judith 
was very far from being Christian, and could be relied on 
merely as far as a counter-irritant might prove of service. 

"Well, of course, it was abominable impertinence of the 
priest to come up with the tenants to try and bully you, 
Papa, but you know, I see their point." Thus, Judith, 
annoyingly, and with pertinacity. 

*'You do, do you!" interjected Judith's progenitor, his 
once ruddy face now a congested purple. " It seems to 
me, Judith, you're always deuced ready to see any one's 
point but mine ! " 

" After all," went on Judith, with all the self-confidence 
and intolerance of five and twenty, *' it's in your interest 
to sell, just as much as theirs to buy ! With this detestable 
Government in power it will be a case of the Sibylline Books. 
You'll see the Nationalists will have it all their own way, 
and the next Act " 

" Nationalists ! " roared the Major, sitting upright in his 
chair, and panting, his utterance temporarily checked by 
the sheer pressure of all that he wished to say, *' Don't 
talk to me of Nationalists ! Common thieves ! That's 
all they are ! There's no Nationalism about them ! Call it 
Sociahsm, if you Hke, or any other name for robbery ! They'd 

233 



234 MOUNT MUSIC 

look very blue if we took to shouting " Ireland a Nation ! " 
and expecting to come in at the finish ! They mightn't 
be able to call us English invaders and to steal our property 
then ! English ! I've got Brian Boroihme in my pedigree 
and that's more than they can say ! A pack of half-bred 
descendants of Cromwell's soldiers ! That's what they are, 
and the best of them, too ! That's the best drop of blood 
they've got ! " Dick shouted, veering in the wind of his own 
words like a rudderless ship in a storm. " That's what 
gives them tenacity and bigotry ! Look at the old places 
that they're squeezing the old families out of ! It's the 
Protestant farmers and the Religious Orders that are getting 
them, swarming into them like rats ! Don't tell me that 
I and my family aren't a better asset to any country than a 
lot of fat, lazy Monks and Nuns ! " 

" But, Papa, theyVe not all fat ! " said Judith, beginning to 
laugh. 

*' Deuce a many of them's thin for want of plenty to eat ! '* 
returned Dick, with the confidence of a man whose faith 
in his theories has never been interfered with by investigation. 
He was recovering his temper, having enjoyed the delivery 
of his diatribe ; and the fact that he had not only silenced 
Judith but had tickled her to a laugh, restored his sense of 
domination. 

Poor old King Canute, with the tide by this time well 
above the tops of his hunting-boots, and all the familiar 
landmarks becoming submerged, one after the other ! It 
may be easy to deride him, but it is hard not to pity him. 

This was on Monday, and Christian returned from her 
week-end visit that evening. Judith stayed, and went with 
Christian to her room. 

Well, my dear," she began, eagerly, as the door closed, 
when are you going to announce it .-^ " 

Christian sat down on her bed. She was looking very 
tired. 

" Never, I think ! " 

Without paying attention to Judith's exclamation she 
took a newspaper out of the pocket of her top-coat, and handed 
it to her sister. 



<< 



MOUNT MUSIC 235 

** This is this evening's paper. I got it at the Junction. 
Read that." She pointed to a paragraph. 

Judith read it ; then she dropped the paper, and gazed at 
Christian with dramatic consternation. 

** The idiot ! " she said, at length. " Couldn't you stop 
him ? " 

" He had promised years ago. I didn't try. He couldn't 
break his word." 

" Oh, rot ! " said Judith, briefly. 

" You know he couldn't, Judy." 

"Well, you know, this will finish him with Papa," 
said Judith, gloomily. " He's bad enough as it is about 
the sales to the tenants, and I was prepared for rows over 
the religious business, of course, but this ! Can't 

you — " 

" I can't do anything," interrupted Christian, gettmg up. 
** I heard from him this morning, fearfully keen about it, 
but he didn't know then if the Party were going to adopt 
him. Evidently they have." 

" Trust them for that ! " said Judith, with a heavy groan? 
" I suppose Larry thinks we shall all be delighted ! What 
fools men are ! Bill did say once that it had been suggested 
— oh, ages ago, when Larry came of age ; Ma-in-law told 
him — but we thought it had died out." 

Christian hardly heard what she said. She was standing 
at the open window, in the stillness that tells of intense 
mental engrossment. Self-deception was impossible for 
her ; her mind was too acute for tolerance of subterfuge ; 
and for her, also, away and beyond the merciless findings 
of intellect was the besetment of presentiment, intuition, 
inward convictions that can override logical conclusions, 
words that are breathed in the soul as by a wind, and, like 
the wind, are born and die in mystery. 

The last of the daylight had gone ; there was a touch of 
frost ; the sky was clear and hard, the stars shone with sharp 
brilliance, some of them had long, slanting rays on either 
hand that looked like wings of light ; a new moon glittered 
among them, keen and clean, and vindictive as a scimitar; 
in the quiet, the low murmur of the Broadwater pervaded 
the night. Judith watched her sister with unconsciously 



236 MOUNT MUSIC 

appraising eyes, noting the straight slenderness of her figure, 
the small, high-held, dark head. 

" Old people are intolerable ! " she thought ; *' she shall 
not sacrifice herself to Papa's prejudices ! If she likes Larry 
she shall have him ! " 

But she was too wise to argue with Christian. 

Dick Talbot-Lowry, though now arrived at the age of 
sixty-nine, was as unconvinced as ever of the fact that time 
had got the better of him, and that its despotism was daily 
deepening. He admitted that he had become something 
of an invalid, but that his elder daughter should have classified 
him as an old person would have appeared to him as absurd 
and offensive. There are minds that keep this inveterate 
youthfulness ; that learn nothing of age, and forget nothing 
of youth. It is an attitude sometimes charming, sometimes 
undignified, always pathetic. Christian saw old age as a 
tragedy, a disaster, to alleviate which no effort on the part 
of the young could be too great ; the pathos and the pity 
of it were ever before her eyes. In contest with her father, 
if contest there were to be, she would go into the arena with 
her right hand tied behind her back. 

Without any definite admission of failure. Major Talbot- 
Lowry had been brought to submit to having his breakfast 
in bed, and Robert Evans, a sour and withered Ganymede, 
was the bearer of it. He was also the bearer of any gossip 
that might be available, and seldom failed to provide his 
master with a stimulant and irritant. On the morning 
following on Christian's return it was very evident that 
intelligence of unusual greatness seethed in the cauldron 
wherein fermented Mr. Evans' brew of nev/s. His rook- 
like eye sparkled, his movements, even that walk for whose 
disabilities it may be remembered that the pantry boy had 
thanked his God, were alert and purposeful. 

" Ye didn't see the Irish Times yet, I think ? " he began, 
standing over his master, and looking down upon him with 
an expression as triumphant and malign as that of a carrion- 
crow with a piece of stolen meat. He rarely bestowed the 
usual honorifics upon Dick, considering that his five years* 
seniority relieved him of such obligations. *' I wouldn't 
believe all I'd read in the papers, but this is true, anyway ! " 



MOUNT MUSIC 237 

" What's true ? " said Major Dick, irritably ; " you've 
forgotten the salt again, Evans ! How the devil can I eat an 
egg without salt ? Send one of the maids for it — don't go 
yourself," he added, as Evans left the room. " The old 
fool'd be all day getting it," he said to himself, with an 
old man's contempt for old age in another. " Now, then,' 
as Evans returned, " what's your wonderful bit of news ?' 

*' Ye can read it there for yourself," replied Evans, coldly 
he was ruffled by the episode of the salt. 

" Damn it, man, I can't read the paper and eat an egg ! ' 
snapped the Major. *' Out with your lie, whatever it is ! ' 

" Master Larry's chosen for the Member in place of 
Prendergast," said Evans, sulkily. 

If Evans had been unfortunate in the way in which his 
sensation had been led up to, its reception left him nothing 
to desire. Dick w^as stricken to an instant of complete silence. 
Then he roared to Evans to take the damned tray out of his 
way, and to give him the (otherwise qualified) paper. 

It would serve no purpose, useful or otherwise, to attempt 
to record Dick Talbot-Lowry's denunciations of Larry, of 
his religion, and of his politics ; of, secondarily, his ingrati- 
tude, his treachery, and his lack of the most rudimentary 
elements of a gentleman. They lasted long, and lacked nothing 
of effect that strength of lung and vigour of language could 
bring to them. And Evans, the many-wintered crow, 
hearkened, and rejoiced that he was seeing his desire of his 
enemy. 

*' No ! I won't eat it ! Take it away — I don't want it, 
I tell you ! Curse you, can't you do as you're bid ? " Thus 
spake Dick Talbot-Lowry, flinging himself back on his 
pillows, and shoving the breakfast-tray from him. The 
hot purple colour that had flooded his face was fading ; his 
voice was getting hoarse and weak. Evans, with an appre- 
hensive eye on his master's changed aspect, carried the tray 
out of the room. 

There was a quick step on the stairs, and Larry came 
lightly along the landing. 

" The Major up, Evans ? No ? Oh, all right ! May I 
come in. Cousin Dick ? " 

He swung into the room. 

Old Evans carefully shut the door behind him. 



238 MOUNT MUSIC 

" Now me laddy-o 1 " he whispered, rubbing his hooked 
grey beak with one finger, and chuckling low and wheezily : 
" Now, maybe ! Me fine young Papist ! Ye'U be getting 
your tay in a mug ! Hot and strong ! Hot and strong ! " 

He moved away fi-om the door with the tray of untouched 
breakfast things. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Lady Isabel was returning from her accustomed house- 
keeping morning visit to Mrs. Dixon, when she was startled 
by the sharp outcry of an electric bell. 

" Dick's room ! " she said to herself, beginning to hurry ; 
she hardly knew why. 

A housemaid ran down the long passage in front of her, 
flying to the summons. Through the open door of the 
dining-room Lady Isabel saw Christian giving the dogs 
their breakfast. 

** Papa's bell is ringing, dear,'* said Lady Isabel, breathing 
hard. 

** I heard someone go up to his room just now," said 
Christian, languidly ; *' I haven't seen him this morning ; 
I was in the yard with the dogs '* 

Someone came down the stairs, headlong, two steps at a 
time. Larry's voice shouted : 

" Christian ! Cousin Isabel ! Anyone ! " 

There was urgency and alarm in the voice. 

Lady Isabel and Christian were in the hall in an instant, 
and met Larry at the foot of the stairs. 

" Cousin Dick's ill ! A heart attack, I think I 

didn't know what to do for him " 

"I do ! " said Christian, speeding upstairs. 

Her mother followed her, and Larry remained in the hall. 
Of one thing he was quite certain, that he had better keep out 
of Cousin Dick's sight. His nerves were quivering from the 
interview that had been so shatteringly abbreviated. Had 
the friendly old setter, whose head at this moment was on 

239 



240 MOUNT MUSIC 

his knee, while her Hmpid eyes swore to him that all her 
love was his, suddenly turned and rent him, it would scarcely 
be a shock worse than that he had received. He had been 
undeterred by the ominous gloom of the Major's greeting ; 
few young men have very keen perception of mood, and Larry, 
deeply self-engrossed, wildly happy, had flung at once into 
his theme, which, it need hardly be said, was Christian. 
Then the storm broke, and the lightning blazed, and the 
thunders of the house uttered their voice, while Larry, amazed, 
horrified, gradually, as the invective gathered volume and 
venom, becoming angry, stood in silence, and received in 
a single cloud-burst the bitter flood of long-pent prejudice, 
jealousy, and sense of injury. 

" Dead ! " Dick had roared ; *' I'd rather see her dead 
in her cofiin than married to " 

The epithets that a hoarded hatred finds ready to hand 
when its pent force is released, come horribly from the lips 
of an old man. Yet, almost more horrible than the full 
tide of rage, was to see its ebb, as " the sick old serv^ant " 
in Major Dick's bosom failed him, and his heart staggered 
and fainted in its effort to abet him in denouncing the young 
cousin who he thought had wronged him. 

Larry sat, fondling the old setter's chestnut head, thinking 
it all over, flaming again at the remembered insults, quailing 
at the possibilities as they concerned Christian. Once she had 
appeared at the top of the stairs, and said the single word, 
*' Better ! " before she vanished. 

One half of Larry's mind said " Better ? What do I 
care ? Better if he dies, if he comes between me and her ! " 
The other, which was his deeper self, preserved the memory 
of Dick's greying face and frightened eyes, and was glad 
that relief had come. 

At last Christian came to him, slowly and with a dragging 
step, down the wide staircase. Her face was white, her eyes 
were set in shadows. 

" How is he ? " 

" Round the corner, I think. We've wired for Mangan." 

" Christian, I want to explain — I said nothing — I never 
meant to annoy him. I began about you, and that — that we 
loved each other. For we do. Christian, don't we ? " He 
had her hands in his, he crushed them in his anxiety, his 



MOUNT MUSIC 241 

eyes implored her. " Then suddenly he began to abuse me 
like a madman ! My religion, my politics, my treachery to 
my class — I can't tell you what he didn't say ! And then 
he swore he'd rather see you dead than married to me. I 
don't know what I said — nothing, I think ; he began to look 
as if he were dying himself, and I rang the bell and bolted 
for you." 

" Poor boy ! " said Christian. 

He thought that her face as she looked at him was as it 
were the face of an angel, but the sorrow in it frightened 
him. 

'* Come into the study," she said, freeing her hands from 
his grasp ; " we can't talk here." 

The study door was open ; he followed her in silence, and, 
shutting the door, sat down beside her on the sofa. 

'* Larry, we've got to face it, you know ; we've got to face 
it," she began, and gave back to him her slender sensitive 
hand, as if to heal the wound of what the words implied. 

** Face what ? " said Larry, stubbornly, girding himself 
for resistance. 

" Face delay — opposition " 

" ril face opposition as much as you like, but I won't face 
delay ! Why should we ? We're of age. There's nothing 
against me ! " 

Christian smiled faintly. 

" Dear child, I know that. It's not the facts that are 
against us, it's the fancies " 

" I won't be patronised ! " said Larry, vehemently. " I'm 
not your dear child ! I'm the man you've promised to marry ! 
No one's fancies have a right to interfere with us ! " 

His arm was round her, and he felt her tremble. He 
loosed her hand, and with his hand that had held it he turned 
her face to his. Then he kissed her, many times, with an 
ever-growing abandonment as he felt the response that she 
tried in vain to withhold. 

At length, in spite of him, she hid her face in his shoulder. 

*' No, Larry, no ! " she gasped, her breath coming short. 
" Dearest, don't be cruel to me ! How can I keep that 
promise ! If you had seen Papa just now and Mother — 
her terror and her helplessness ! How could I leave them .' 
Supposing that I defied him, and married you, and that he 

Q 



242 MOUNT MUSIC 

died in one of these furies ' Just think what that would be 
for us ! " 

" He wouldn't die ! " said Larry, obstinately. " People 
don't die as easy as all that ! " he added, with a fierce thought 
of regret that Dick had not gone out in this latest storm. 

" Listen," said Christian, beseechingly. *' Don't let us 
be in such a hurry. Everything needn't be settled at once. 
We'll ask Dr. Mangan how Papa is, and if there is real danger 
for him in these rages. He was nearly as bad on Saturday 
after the Priest and the tenants had been here." 

Larry's face was dark ; he was not used to opposition. 
His guardians and his spiritual directors had alike found that 
while he was easy to lead, he was a difficulty and a danger 
to drive. He was stirred to the depths now. The strain of 
receiving Dick's onslaught in silence, the shock of his collapse, 
and now the fire that Christian's nearness and dearness had 
lit in him, all broke his self-control. He held her to him. 

*' I will never let you go ! Never ! " His lips were 

on hers again, life, with all its difficulties, was again forgotten, 
the rhyme of the pairies' Well galloped in his hot brain : 
" My heart in your hands, your heart in me." 

The sound of the hall door opening, and the grinding 
roar of a motor engine running down, recalled them both 
to this troublesome world. 

But in Christian's heart, whether from within or from 
without, a voice had spoken, telling the kisses, one by one, 
as though they were the petals of a flower. " This 
year, next year, sometime, never ! " If the last word had 
been " sometime," or " never," she knew not ; she knew 
only that if what was before her was the way of renunciation, 
she woald find it a hard way to walk in. 

Dr. Mangan stood, a massive presence, at the top of 
the stairs, and talked massively to Lady Isabel of Dick's 
condition. 

" Very critical — no worries — nourishment — would he have 
a nurse ? " 

To which Lady Isabel, a poor, shaken, pallid Lady Isabel, 
with no more backbone than the shape of blancmange, 
which, it must be said, she somewhat resembled, replied : 
*' Nothing would induce him ! " 

" Then I should like to have a little talk with Miss 



MOUNT MUSIC 243 

Christian," said the Big Doctor, beginning to walk down- 
stairs, slowly, solemnly, soHdly, like a trick-elephant at a 
circus. 

Christian's quick ears had heard his voice on the stairs, 
and she met him in the hall. Larry stood irresolute at the 
door of the study. His eyes met those of the Doctor, and 
something during the interchange of glances suggested that 
his presence was not desired. He returned to the study 
and shut the door, and wished that he could have a word 
alone with the Doctor, just to put him up to what to say to 
Christian. He could hear the heavy rumble of the Doctor's 
bass voice, and the soft alto murmur of Christian's replies. 
She had the Irish voice, pitched on a low note, an instrument 
more apt for pathos than for gaiety, which is, perhaps, what 
gives to its gaiety so special a charm. 

Larry stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, 
trying to steady himself. Deep under his panic uncertainty 
as to the strength of his hold on Christian, was the anger 
that Dick's denunciation had roused in him, and momently, 
as his mind went back over the interview, remembrance of 
the insults became more unendurable. Abuse from the old 
to the young, and from a sick man to a sound one, cannot 
fail to rankle, since it cannot be flung back. Generosity 
may impose silence, but it cannot obliterate an insult or heal 
a wound. 

Christian came into the room ; he heard her come, but 
he would not look round. She slid her hand into his arm. 

" Larry ! Dear ! Listen to me ; there's no way out of 
it but patience. Dr. Mangan says he must be kept absolutely 
quiet, and have nothing to annoy him. He says he might 
die in an instant in one of those attacks. He's not himself 

now, Larry — so little makes him lose self-control '* 

She paused, but Larry did not speak. " You couldn't 
want me to sacrifice the little share of life left to him to our 
happiness ; I know you couldn't ! Larry, he's an old man ; 
it can't be for very long " 

" I don't see that that follows," said Larry, implacably. 
*' He had strength enough to blackguard me very thoroughly, 
and it hasn't done him any harm. It seems to me, Fm the 
one to be sacrificed 1 " 

'* He spoke to Mother about us — about what you said to 



244 MOUNT MUSIC 

him. He began about it the instant he could speak. She—" 
Christian hesitated, " she could only quiet him by saying 
there was no engagement between us." 

" Then she said what wasn't true ! " 

" Oh, it must be true ! " said Christian, desperately ; " it's 
got to be true " 

" Very well," said Larry, moving away, so that her hand 
fell from his arm. " If it's got to be true I suppose there's 
no more to be said. I may as well go. After all, I daresay 
you're well quit of me. Your father says I'm a damned 
Papist and " 

" I won't listen to you !" broke in Christian " What's 
the use of hurting me and hurting yourself like this ? Larry, 
I'll wait for you for ever — you know that — time will make 
no difference. Don't make it harder for me than it must 
be! " 

" You don't seem to think much about me," said Larry, 
with a still rage that was a new thing with him. He left her 
side, and walked steadily to the door ; then he turned, and 
in a few quick steps came back to her. He put his hands 
on her shoulders ; he was not much taller than she, and his 
eyes looked straight into hers. 

*' Then it's true, is it ? You're off it ? You've given 
me the chuck ? " 

He spoke roughly, and gripped her harder than he knew, 
and in the tension of her nerves, the roughness of the words 
and action cut her like the stroke of a whip. Almost as if 
he had struck her, a splash of colour came in her face. 

Larry was blind to the torture in her eyes, but he saw the 
quick red, and knew he had hurt her high spirit, and was 
glad. 

" If you like to put it in that way ! " said Christian, her 
head up, her mood answering his, '* apparently it is the 
only thing to be done ! " 

There came a tap at the door. Dr. Mangan's voice said : 
"I'm going back to Cluhir now. Haven't you to meet 
Father Greer at twelve o'clock, Larry ? I could give you 
a lift if you Hke " 

4C. ^u ^ ^& ^ ^u 

•Tt" T? T^ ^P W ^P 

From an early work on the Fauna of the Indian Forest 



MOUNT MUSIC 245 

the following extract may be quoted : 

** The elephant's trunk then encircled the young man*s 
body, and placing him gently upon its back, the huge 
•creature ambled away with its prize to the depths of the 
jungle.'* 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

Little Mary Twomey, footing it into Cluhir on a misty 
Saturday morning, with a basket of fowl under her brown 
and buff shawl, was not sorry when, from a side road on the 
line of march, a donkey-cart, driven by an acquaintance, 
drew forth at the instant of her passing. 

" God bless ye, John Brien," she said, when the suitable 
salutations and comments on the weather had been exchanged, 
with the rigorous courtesy observed by such as Mary Twomey 
and John Brien with one another, " this basket is very weighty 
on me " 

*' Put it up on the butt, ma'am," responded John Brien. 
" Put it up, for God's sake, and let you sit up with it. Sure 
the ass is able for more than yourself ! " 

This referred, with polite facetiousness, to Mrs. Twomey's 
stature, and was taken by her in excellent part. 

She uttered a brief screech. *' Isn't it what they say they 
puts the best of goods in the small passels } " she demanded ; 
** but for all, I wouldn't wish it to be too small altogether I 
* Look ! ' I says to that owld man I have, * Look ! When 
I'll be dead, let ye tell the car-pennther that he'll make the 
coffin a bit-een too long, the way the people'll think the 
womaneen inside in it wasn't altogether too small entirely ! ' " 

*' Arrah, don't talk of dyin' for a while, ma'am ! " said 
John Brien, gallantly. *' Aren't you an' me about the one 
age, and faith, when you're dyin' I'll be sending for the 
priest for meself ! " 

*'' Well, please God, the pair of us'll knock out a spell 
yet ! " responded Mrs. Twomey, cheerfully ; "for as little 
as I am, the fly itself wouldn't like to die ! " 

246 



MOUNT MUSIC 247 

John Brien did not question this assertion. ** The 'fluenzy 
is very raging these times," he remarked. 

" 'Tis a nassty, dirty disease ahogether, God help us ! " 
said Mrs. Twomey, with feehng. 

** It is, and very numerous," rephed John Brien. *' There's 
people dying now that never died before." 

This statement presented no difficulty to Mrs. Twomey, 
since she had no desire to exult over Mr. Brien as being what is 
often called a typical Irishman, and was able to accept its 
rather excessive emphasis in the sense in which it was intended. 

" Tm told Major Lowry is sick enough," went on John 
Brien ; *' an impression like, on the heart, they tells me." 

*' He have enough to trouble him," said Mrs. Twom.ey, 
portentously ; " and I wouldn't wish it to him. A fine 
man he was. Ye'd stand in the road to look at him 1 The 
highest gentleman of the day ! " 

*' Well, that's true enough," said John Brien, cautiously. 
** There's some says the servants in the house didn't get 
their hire this two years." 

*' Dirty little liars ! " said Mrs. Twomey, warmly. " Divil 
mend them, and their chat ! There isn't one but has as 
many lies told as'd sicken an ass ! Wasn't I sellin' a score 
of eggs to the Docthor's wife a' Saturday, and she askin' 
me this an' that, and * wasn't it said young Mr. Coppinger 
was to marry Miss Christhian Lowry ' ? Ah ha ! She was 

dam' sweet, but she didn't get " Mrs. Twomey swiftly 

licked and exhibited a grey and wrinkled finger — *' that much 
from me ! " 

*' Ha, very good, faith 1 " said John Brien ; *' them women 
wants to know too much ! " 

" And if they do itself," retorted Mrs. Twomey, instant 
in defence of her sex, '* isn't it to plase the min that's foUyin' 
them for the news ! Yis ! An' they too big fools to hear 
it for theirselves ! " 

John Brien, somewhat stupified by this home thrust, 
made no reply, but smote the donkey heavily, provoking it 
to a jog that temporarily jolted conversation to death. 

At the next incline, however, Mrs. Twomey took up her 
parable again. 

" Tell me now awhile, John, what day is this th' election 
is?" 



248 MOUNT MUSIC 

*' I d'no if it isn't Choosday week it is," replied John Brian, 
without interest. *' There's two o' them up for it now. 
Young Coppinger, that was the first in it, and a chap from 
T'prairy. What's this his name is ? — Burke, I think it is. 
Sure they had two meetin's after chapel at Riverstown last 
Sunday. Roaring there they were out o' mothor-cars. 
But it's little I regard them and their higs and thrigs ! " 

" Why wouldn't ye wote for Larry Coppinger, John ? " 
said Mrs.Twomey, persuasively ** and him ' All-for-Ireland ' ! 
A strong, cocky young boy he is too ; greatly for composhing 
he is, an' painting, an' the like o' that. Sure didn't I tell him it 
was what it was he had a rag on every bush ! ' Well,' says 
he, ' Mrs. Twomey,' says he, ' I'll have another rag on another 
bush soon,' says he. ' Sir,' says I to him, ' that much would 
not surpass your honour ! ' But faith, they're tellin' me now 
Burke'U have him bet out, and I'm sorry to me heart for 
it." 

John Erien looked from one side of the road to the other, 
and ahead, between his donkey's ears. The mist was close 
round the cart as the walls of a room ; the only sound was 
the thin wind singing in the telegraph wires. 

" Mrs. Twomey," murmured John Brien, " the Clergy is 
agin him ! " 

*' Oh, great and merciful Lord God ! " said Mrs. Twomey. 
She said it without either irreverence or reverence. She 
merely wished to express to John Brien her comprehension 
of the importance of his statement. 

Larry had flung himself into electioneering as an alternative 
to drink. That was how he put it to himself. He took 
rooms at Hallinan's Hotel, in Cluhir, in order to be on top 
of the railway station, and the situation generally, and he 
had, moreover, a standing invitation to No. 6, The Mall, 
for any meal, at any hour of the day or night, that he found 
suitable. The district to be canvassed was a wide one, 
and day after day Larry and the faithful Barty went forth 
to interview '^People of importance " ; darkly-cautious 
publicans, with wives lurking at hand to make sure that 
"Himself " should do nothing rash ; uninterested farmers, 
who *' had their land bought," and were left cold by the 
differences 'twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee ; and 
visits to *' The Clergy " of all denominations, productive of 



MOUNT MUSIC 249 

much artificially friendly converse and no very definite 
promises. 

Of Larry's own Communion, Father Tim Sweeny alone 
announced himself, unhesitatingly, as being of Larry's camp. 
Father Tim's hostility had not been proof against Larry's 
charms, more especially since these were combined with a 
substantial proof of the young candidate's interest in the 
decoration of the new chapel ; and, at the gate of that chapel, 
(the site of which he did not forget that he owed to Larry) 
he attended one of Larry's meetings, and shook his bovine 
head at his flock, and bellowed ferocious commendation of 
the young man, who, he thundered, had not failed in his 
duty by the Church and the people. There was a down- 
right, fighting quality in Father Sweeny that was large and 
stimulating. Larry felt that he had, at least, his own parish 
firmly at his back, and wished that he had a few more such 
as Father Tim to stand by him. 

The Rev. Matthew Cotton (stiffened by Mrs. Cotton) 
said that to enter a hustings for a Home Ruler, of any variety, 
would be for him an unauthorised bowing down in the House 
of Rimmon, a simile that conveyed little to Larry, and nothing 
at all, allegorically, to his agent, Barty Mangan, though its 
practical interpretation presented no difficulties to either of 
them. 

The Reverend Mr. Armstrong, Pastor of the Methodists, 
admitted to a preference for an " All-for-Irelander," as 
opposed to an Official Nationalist ; but evaded the 
responsibility of a promise by saying that he would lay the 
matter before the Lord, and would write later. 

Neither did young Mr. Coppinger receive much encourage- 
ment from hi? own class. Bill Kirby, indeed, undertook 
to support him and even volunteered to go round with him 
on his canvassing expeditions, but this was considered by 
Larry's Committee as being of questionable advantage, 
even, possibly, affording to the enemy an occasion to 
blaspheme, and the offer (made, it may be said, at Judith's 
instigation) was declined. 

Nor, as a matter of fact, was Larry himself disposed to 
take Bill Kirby 's proffered hand. He told himself that he 
was done with that lot. He was bitterly angry with Christian. 
He said to himself that he would never forgive her ; w^ould 



250 MOUNT MUSIC 

never, if he could help it, see one of them again. At a word 
from her father she had chucked him ; without a moment of 
hesitation, without a word to show that she was even sorry 
for her father's treatment of him. " Apparently it's the 
only thing to do ! " she had said. That was all she thought of 
keeping a promise ! What about leaving father and mother 
and sticking to your husband, he would like to know ! These 
Protestants who talked such a lot about reading the Bible ! 
It was quite true what old Mangan had said : *' When all 
comes to all, a man must stick to his own Church ! " All 
these others, these St. Georges, and Westropps, and old 
Ardmore, and the rest of them, had only been waiting to 
jump on him as soon as he put a foot out of the rut they all 
walked in. They had waited for the chance to make him a 
pariah. Now they had it. All right ! He could face that. 
They should soon see how little he thought of them ! 

He pitched himself headlong into the contest. The 
weather had fallen from grace. October, having been borne 
in on the wings of a gale, was storming on through wind and 
wet, and the game of canvassing, that had seemed, on that 
sunny day when he had written to Christian, so *' frightfully 
interesting," was beginning to pall. Boring as were the 
personal interviews, and exhausting the evening oratory in 
town halls and school-houses, the Sunday meetings at the 
gates of the chapels were still more arduous. On each Sunday, 
during the period between the death of Daniel Prendergast 
and the election of his successor, did young Mr. Coppinger, 
with chosen members of his ** Commy-tee " — he had learnt 
to accept the inflexible local pronunciation — splash from 
chapel to chapel, to meet the congregations, and to shout 
platitudes to them. Larry began to feel that no conviction 
— however fervently held — could survive the ordeal of being 
slowly yelled to a bored crowd from the front seat of a motor 
car. He told himself that he had become a gramophone, 
and a tired gramophone, badly in want of winding up, at 
that. 

It would be of Httle avail to attempt to define the precise 
shade of green of young Mr. Coppinger's political flag ; 
whether, as a facetious supporter put it, it was " say-green, 
pay-green, tay-green, or bottle." It is enough to say that 
it varied sufficiently from that of Mr. Burke to provide their 



MOUNT MUSIC 251 

respective followers with a satisfactory casus belli. The 
shades of political opinion in Ireland change, and melt 
and merge into each other as the years pass, even as the colours 
of her surrounding seas vary, deepening and paling with the 
changing clouds, yet affecting only the surface, leaving the 
sullen depths unchanged. Larry knew no more of Ireland 
than a boy can learn in his school holidays ; it was only by 
degrees that he realised that in Ireland, as he now found it, 
the single element of discord that remained ever unchanged 
was Religion. He had spent the four most recent and most 
receptive years of his life in an atmosphere in which religion 
had no existence. The hem of its raiment might, perhaps, 
have been touched, when, as sometimes happened, the subject 
of a studio composition was taken from the Bible, or the 
Apocrypha. Then, possibly, would the young pagans of 
Larry's circle discover as much acquaintance with the 
Scriptures as would point a jest, and give an agreeable 
sensation of irreverence in discussing the details of the subject. 
" There," thought Larry, " no one thought about your 
religion. No one cared if you had one, and the presumption 
was that you hadn't." But here, in these little Irish towns, 
the question of a man's private views on a matter that might 
be supposed to concern only himself, appeared of paramount 
importance. He listened to denunciations of Protestants 
until he felt, as he told the faithful Barty, that " for tuppence " 
he would change over himself ; just as in some sections of 
the rival camp, he would have heard to weariness of the 
bigotry and errors of Romanism. He was brought, as many 
people more God-fearing than he have been brought, 
to debate the question as to whether a common atheism were 
not the only panacea for the mutual hatreds that, as appeared 
to him from his present point of view, ruled the Island 
of Saints. He and Barty would sit up over the dying embers 
of the dining-room fire of No. 6, The Mall, talking ; 
wrangling, in a sort of country-dance of argument, in which 
they advanced and retired, and joined hands, and flung away 
from each other again ; ending, generally, in such agreement 
as might be found in a common determination to lay all the 
blame for all the malice and uncharitableness at the door 
of the clergy of the two creeds ; a comprehensive decision, and 
a consoling one, from the point of view of two laymen. 



252 MOUNT MUSIC 

Larry, in his loneliness, had fallen into the habit of 
frequenting No. 6 ; of ** taking pot-luck," of " dropping 
in," or of " turning in," all of which courses had been urged 
upon him by his captor, Dr. Mangan. Those great and 
special gifts of the Mangan family, the love of music, and the 
habit of it (which are not always allied) bestowed upon the 
household a charm that was almost more potent for Larry 
than any other could have been. At the end of a long day 
of canvassing, spent with companions who, he felt, only half 
trusted him, and were incapable of being amused by the 
things that amused him (a factor in friendship that cannot 
be valued too highly) it was comforting to ** drop in " to the 
hospitable, untidy house, where, thanks to Mrs. Mangan's 
early experiences, there was always good luck in the pot, 
and to spend a peaceful evening over the fire, smoking, and 
listening to the famous Mangan Quartet. Music was the 
initial point of contact between Larry and these people among 
whom he had once more been cast, and the Big Doctor was 
not unaware of the fact. Singly, or united, the Mangan 
voices, mellow, tuneful, singing songs of Ireland with artless 
grace and charm, wrought more in Larry's soul than he was 
aware of. Not only to his ears, but to his eyes also, 
the Mangan Quartet brought artistic satisfaction. The Big 
Doctor, with his sombre face and overhanging brow, looking, 
in the lamplight, like a Rembrandt burgomaster ; Barty and 
his mother, pale and dark-eyed, recalling Southern Italy 
rather than Southern Ireland ; and Tishy — Larry's eyes 
used to dwell longest on Tishy, her face lit by her most 
genuine feeling, the love of music, while her voice of velvet 
(of purple velvet, he decided) mourned for Patrick Sarsfield, 
or lamented with Emer for Cuchulain, or thrilled her listener 
with the sudden glory of " The Foggy Dew." Larry's 
own voice was habitually exhausted by the cart-tail oratory 
in which he daily expended it ; it was enough for him to 
listen and look, shutting his mind to the past, living, as ever, 
in the present, like a wise man, because its bounty sufficed 
him. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

At a little before this time a sufficiently epoch-making scene 
had taken place between Dr. Mangan and his daughter, 
following not long on that day when the elephant had conveyed 
his captive to the depths of the jungle. 

** Tishy ! " said the Big Doctor, looming large at the door 
of the dining-room where his daughter was engaged in 
trimming a hat, " come down to the surgery a minute ; I 
want you." 

The feather to which Miss Mangan had just imparted the 
correct '* set," was only fixed in position with a precarious 
pin, none the less, Tishy, albeit vexed, did not delay. She 
had a well-founded respect for the Fifth Commandment, 
as far, at all events, as her father was concerned. She 
abandoned the hat, and followed the Doctor through the 
narrow hall-passage and into the surgery, with a promptness 
that she was not wont to exhibit in obeying an order that 
was not convenient. 

Dr. Mangan had seated himself at his desk, and was 
writing. Tishy stood by the seat dedicated to patients ; 
she wished to imply that she had been interrupted in her 
work, and that her time was of value. 

" There now," said Dr. Mangan, thumping the envelope 
that he had just closed and directed, on the blotting-paper, 
with his big fist, '* I want you to run round to Hallinan's 
with this for me." 

** Is it a hurry ? " asked Tishy, unwillingly. 
It is. It's to order rooms for Larry Coppinger. He's 

253 



<< 



254 MOUNT MUSIC 

coming to stay in town till the election's over. Sit down 
there a minute." 

Tishy obeyed, and the Doctor surveyed her attentively. 
The position that is assigned to patients in a doctor's con- 
sulting room is one that faces the light, pitilessly, inescapably ; 
but for Tishy, this was a negligible disadvantage. A peacock 
butterfly looks its best in sunlight, and Tishy's dark bloom, 
and intent eyes of luminous grey, faced the glare of October 
sunlight with confident unconcern. 

" A right-down handsome girl ! " he had called her, to 
himself, more than once ; now, he thought, she had good 
looks enough for any man in Europe. It was not his habit 
to betray his feelings ; but as he sat there, appraising her, 
weighing her beauty, as a jeweller might appraise some rich- 
hued ruby that a kind fate had placed in his hands, sheer 
pride in her made him smile, and he was hard put to it to 
keep up the severity that he believed the occasion exacted. 

" I've a couple of things to say to you," he resumed, *' and 
you know as well as I do that I've no fancy for saying things 
twice. I've seen Ned Cloherty sneaking about the Mall 
very often lately — like as if he was waiting for somebody. 
I'm not saying it's for you or me he's waiting ; you might know 
that better than I do. But he's no great ornament to the 
view there, or anywhere else, as far as I can see ! " 

Tishy put her strong, rounded chin in the air, and said, 
" I suppose other people have a right to use the roads as 
well as us ! " 

The Doctor was glad that his face was shadowed, as he noted 
the arrogant tilt of her head, and the smooth, cream-white 
pillar of her neck that it revealed, since the smile of paternal 
pride would not be denied. He didn't blame Ned Cloherty 
to be sneaking about after her ; there wasn't her like in the 
county. But she very certainly was too good for the likes of Ned 
Cloherty. '* Now, Babsey," he said, and Tishey knew that 
the old pet name denoted a satisfaction with her that might not 
otherwise betray itself, " you're a sensible girl, and I needn't 
go out of my way to tell you things that you're smart enough 
to see for yourself. You're * pert enough without Latin ' 
— as they say ! Well, I'll just say one other thing to you, 
and it's this. Larry Coppinger's up for this election, and 
I've told him to use this house, like his own, as much as he 



MOUNT MUSIC 255 

wants to," the Doctor stood up and took a pocket-book 
from the breast-pocket of his coat. " You're to make it 
agreeable for him to come here. Mind that ! And more 
than agreeable ! I'll think very little of you if you don't 
have him at your feet before you're done with him ! " he went 
on, selecting something from among the papers in the pocket- 
book as he spoke. " There's not a girl in Ireland that 
wouldn't half hang herself for the chance you'll have ! And 
there's not a girl in Cluhir but will be gibeing you if you lose 
it ! " He took a step towards where Tishy was sitting, and 
put his hand under his chin. 

Her bright water-grey eyes were alight with mutiny ; 
she laughed defiantly. 

" Suppose I don't want it ! " 

Her father looked steadily at her ; he saw, as clearly as 
if she had spoken, that the suggestion had excited her. 

" Well, Babs," he said, with the laugh that always seemed 
an octave higher than matched with his voice, " if you're 
able to bring him to your feet — and I'm not saying you v/ill ! 
You might find it a bit of a job too ! — ^you'll want a dandy 
pair of shoes on them ! Put this in your pocket." 

He had taken a ten-pound note out of his pocket-book, 
and he pushed it into Tishy's strong and supple white hand. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

Great pain paralyses the mind, as the torture of a limb 
makes the limb faint and helpless. When the heart-pain 
can be dealt with as a separate thing, it is no longer supreme. 

This was the difference between Christian and Larry. 
Her love was herself, indivisible, a condition of her being. 
When it ceased, it would mean that the creature that called 
herself Christian Talbot-Lowry had ceased also. During 
the long, bright morning, after Larry and Dr. Mangan had 
departed together, she felt that this had happened ; that 
the part of her that knew and suffered had gone away, or 
was lying dead in her. There was a weight in her breast, 
she could feel it, but she scarcely felt pain, only a great 
bewilderment, an incredulity that this thing, of whose reality 
her mind told her, but without conviction, should have 
happened to her, just precisely to her, out of all the people 
in the world. People have felt this when that iron shutter 
that is called Death has fallen between them and that one 
who was their share of the Vv^orld. A part of them, some 
plausible imitation of them, can speak and act, and be extolled, 
perhaps, for facing the music stoutly ; while the stricken 
thing that is themselves, is lying prone before the iron 
shutter ; beating on it with broken hands, calling, and 
hearing no answer. 

It was nearly a month now since Dick Talbot-Lowry had 
asserted his paternal rights, and had, following various classic 
and biblical precedents, sacrificed his daughter to his own 
particular formulae of religion and politics. He would never 
know that it had been the appeal that weakness makes to 
strength that had given him his victory. When he spoke to 

256 



MOUNT MUSIC 257 

Lady Isabel of his scene with Larry, he told her that he had 
nipped the thing in the bud. The damned puppy of a fellow 
took for granted that Christian was in love with him ; but 
here she was, going about as usual, as jolly as a sandboy ; 
" in fact," Dick would say, plastering up with bromidic 
mortar the windows of the narrow dwelling wherein dwelt 
Lady Isabel's soul, " all's well that ends well ! " With which 
valuable aphorism, sanctioned by a long and respectable past, 
the Major contentedly fed his heart, and tranquillised that 
of his wife. 

Judith was less confident of the satisfactory end of all 
things. She was, in fact, exceedingly indignant that an 
engagement so entirely advantageous from all practical 
points of view should be broken off; " simply to gratify 
Papa's imbecile prejudices ! " she declared, with her usual 
emphasis. " Christian, you were a fool to mind what he 
said or did. He wouldn't have died 1 Not a bit of him ! 
Of course, Mother has got to agree with him — that's what 
he married her for ! " 

*' Don't tire me, Judy, please," Christian would say, 
serenely. " It's all over now. These discussions only 
weary me. I assure you my philosophy is quite equal to 
the strain ! " 

" If that's the case, I don't know why you should look like 
a dying ghost ! " 

Judith had never entirely comprehended her younger 
sister, and she found her, as she said with indignation to 
the concurring Bill, absolutely dark and inscrutable over 
the whole affair. 

" I know it's hit her hard, but nothing will make her admit 
it. I detest Spartan Boys ! " said Judith. 

The Spartan Boy in question, though aware of her sister's 
ardent desire to investigate her wounds, had no intention 
of removing the cloak that covered them. She wrapped it 
close about her, so close that Lady Isabel, while unable to 
stifle a motherly regret for the wedding that might have 
been, thanked heaven that Christian had not " really cared " ; 
so close that even Judith said that, since Christian had not 
been hit too hard, though she regretted the coup manque^ 
she personally found some consolation in the fact that she 

R 



258 MOUNT MUSIC 

would not be called upon to make apologies for the political 
aberrations of her brother-in-law. 

The polling day came, and passed with but little excitement. 

*' You wouldn't har'ly know it," said a voter, who had 
returned to his normal avocations after a morning wasted, 
as he considered, in the task of recording his vote. " There 
was a few men drunk in the town. Which won is it ? Bedad, 
they dunno yet. Father Sweeny it was marched in the 
Pribawn boys. Faith, he had them well regulated. Very 
nate they marched, very natp entirely. They never were 
in such rotation ! " 

The voter bent melancholy and slightly bloodshot eyes 
upon Christian, and awaited her reply. 

Christian, with her usual miscellaneous company of dogs, 
was on her way to visit a woman whose husband had died 
not long before. Her way took her along the banks of the 
Broadwater, and during one of the frequent pauses, 
necessitated by the investigations into the private affairs 
of water-rats and others, made by her companions she and 
Peter Callaghan had exchanged greetings. He and Christian 
had fallen into talk, with the absence of formaHty that is, 
perhaps, peculiar to intercourse between his class and hers. 
He leant upon his scythe, and discoursed seriously and 
courteously. He wore a soft, slouched black hat, that did 
not wholly conceal his thick and curly hair, in which there 
was scarcely a grey strand, though he was, as he told 
Christian, the one age with her father. His white flannel 
jacket was wrapped round him, its skirts pushed under the 
band of his brown frieze trousers. A red wisp of rag was 
knotted round his middle, and held all together. His pale 
grey and wistful eyes looked at Christian from above a tangled 
thicket of grizzled moustache and beard. He suggested, 
almost equally, a conventional Saint Joseph and a stage- 
brigand — a brigand, as it might be, who had joined the 
Salvation Army. *' As old as I am," he returned, dreamily, 
to the affair of the morning, " I stepped it away with them ! '* 

He turned his eyes from Christian's face to the large and 
sliding brightness of the river. 

There followed a moment of silence that was filled by the 
yelps of the little dogs who had marked a water-rat to ground, 
and the hobble-de-hoy shouts of the hound puppies, uttered 



MOUNT MUSIC 259 

with no definite idea of the cause of their enthusiasm, but 
none the less enthusiastic for that reason. 

'' Are you the youngest young lady, I beg your pardon ? " 
Peter Callaghan asked presently. " It's long since I seen 
you. Your father knows me well. I remember of one time 
when the hounds was crossing my land, and I seen yourself 
and your sisther taking the hur'ls. I cries out to ye ' me, 
heart'd rise at ye, my darlins ! ' and the Major, he laughs ! " 

'* I remember jumping the hurdles," said Christian ; 
"I'll tell my father I met you." 

*' He gave me permission to cut the * looha ' in these fields," 
resumed Peter Callaghan. "I'm thankful to him. I have 
a good sop of it cut." 

He waved a hand ; Christian saw, at a little distance, a 
heap of rushes, and, seated on it, a girl, of whose presence she 
had been unaware. She was very pale, and there was a 
fixity of sadness about her. Christian spoke to her, but she 
did not appear to notice. 

" She's my daughter," said Peter Callaghan in his quiet 
voice. " She wouldn't know it was to her you spoke. She's 
dark, the creature. BHnded she is. She's not long that 
way." 

" How did it happen ? " said Christian, in a low voice. 

" You could not say," said Peter Callaghan ; his dreamy 
eyes roved again over the broad river ; " God left a hand 
on her," he said. 

Christian went on her way, and the words stayed with her. 
* God left a hand on her.' There had been no resentment 
in the father's voice, only a profound and noble gravity. 

*' And here am I," thought Christian, " angry and 
whimpering " 

Mrs. James Barry lived a mile or so farther down the river. 
Christian gathered up her pack of terriers, hound puppies, 
and red setters, with the farm collie to complete its absurdity, 
and walked fast. October was just ending ; the willows 
along the river-bank were yellow, the reeds in the ditches 
that ran beneath each fence were greying and withering. 
The successive profiles of wood and hill, down the valley of 
the river went from orange and brown to a reddish purple, 
until, in the large serenity of the autumn evening, they 
softened to the universal blue of distance. 



26o MOUNT MUSIC 

Mrs. Barry's farm-house stood a little back from the river. 
A stream that widened to a pond, and narrowed again to a 
stream, divided the house from the fields that ran between 
it and the river ; the decent thatched roofs and whitewashed 
walls of the farm, and the elm trees that grew beside it, were 
mirrored in the pond. A flotilla of geese and ducks paraded, 
in stately fatuity, to and fro across the mirror. A battered 
little wooden bridge, painted green, enabled the people of 
the farm to reach the banks of the river. Christian crossed 
it, and went up to the open door of the house. 

In the kitchen a red-haired woman was seated, rocking a 
wooden cradle with her foot while she stitched at a child's 
frock. Hens, with their alert and affected reserve of manner, 
stepped in and out of the doorway, sometimes slowly, with 
poised claw, sometimes headlong, with greedy speed. 
Christian watched them and the hound puppies (in whose 
power of resistance to temptation she had no confidence), 
while she talked to the woman of the house, and heard the 
story of her trouble. 

Her husband had been " above in the hospital at Rivers- 
town. He was in it with a fortnight," said the red-haired 
woman in the idiom of her district, the noise of the rocker 
of the cradle on the earthen floor beating through her words ; 
'* he had a bunch, like, undher his chin, and they were to 
cut it." She paused, and the wooden bump of the cradle 
filled the pause. 

" When they had it cut, he rose up on the table, and all 
his blood went from him ; only one little tint, I suppose, 
stopped in him. Afther a while, the nurse seen the life 
creeping back in him. * We have him yet ! ' says she to the 
Docthor. * I thought he was gone from us ! ' says the 
Docthor." The voice ceased again. The speaker slashed 
the frock in her hand at an over-bold hen, who had skipped 
on to the table beside her and was pecking hard and sharp 
at some food on a plate. 

" They sent him home then. We thought he was cured 
entirely. He pulled out the summer, but he had that langer- 
some way with him through all." 

She was silent a moment, then she looked at Christian, 
with grief, crowned and omnipotent, on her tragic brow. 

** As long as he was alive, I had courage in spite of all. 



MOUNT MUSIC 261 

but when I thinks now of them days, and the courage I had, 
it goes through me ! *' Her red-brown eyes stared through 
the open door at the path twisting across the field to the high 
road. 

*' Ye'll never see him on that road again, and when I looks 
up it me heart gets dark. Sure, now when he's gone, I 
thinks often if he'd be lyin' par'lysed above in the bed, I'd 
be runnin' about happy ! " 

When Christian went home Mrs. Barry walked with her 
to the little green bridge, and stood there until her visitor 
reached the bend of the river where the path passed from her 
sight. 

At the turning Christian looked back and saw the lonely 
figure standing at the bridge-head, and again she said to 
herself : " Here am I, angry and whimpering ! " 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

Doctor Mangan told himself that he had never laid out a 
ten-pound note to better advantage than the one he had 
pushed into the heel of Tishy's fist. It had, as he thought 
it would, clinched the matter. He had never been unaware 
of the menace of Cloherty, R.A.M.C., but he was confident 
in the three forces that he had at his command — authority, 
bribery, and propinquity. 

" If I know my young lady," he said cheerfully to himself, 
" she'll think more of Larry at her elbow, than of that foxy 
devil back at Riverstown " (which was the present scene of 
Captain Cloherty's professional labours). " And what's 
more, if Tishy will only give her mind to it, it'll take a stiifer 
lad than Master Larry to be man enough for her ! She 
downed him once, and she'll do it again, in spite of Christian 
Lowry ! " 

Even as the Big Doctor thought, there were many more 
that fought for him in this matter than against him. Potent 
had been his suggestion to his daughter that there wasn't a 
girl in Cluhir that wouldn't " be gibeing at her " if she lost 
so golden an opportunity, nor one that would believe she had 
not half hanged herself to secure it. (And though it has 
not been possible to include them in this chronicle, it may be 
accepted that there were many girls in Cluhir of the lively 
malevolence of whose gibes Tishy was entirely sensible.) 
Even more potent was the pull of Larry's position, the prestige 
of his money, of his ** place," of his good looks ; most potent 
of all, the fact of his nearness, the mere primary fact that 
he was a young man, in whose company she was daily thrown, 

262 



MOUNT MUSIC 263 

whose unattached status (the Doctor had kept his own counsel 
as to that interview with Christian, and his deductions there- 
from) was a continual challenge to her charms, whose mere 
presence was an excitement and a stimulus. 

As the poUing day approached, and effort became more 
strenuous, Larry fell ever more gratefully into the habit of 
No. 6, The Mall. Of coming in, in the gloom of the wet 
afternoon, and finding Tishy mending her gloves, or stitching 
something all lace and ribbons, something that would 
obviously blossom into a " Sunday blouse," but that, with a 
flash of her grey eyes, she would tell him was " poor-clothes," 
that the Nuns had asked her to make. Of sitting on the 
big sofa beside her, and teasing her about Captain Cloherty, 
and the adventure in which Tinker took a leading part. 

*' If you go teUing tales to the Doctor, you'll be sorry ! " 

" How can you make me sorry ? " 

** Wait awhile and you'll find out ! There are plenty 
ways to teach little boys manners 1 Oh, look now what 
you've done ! You've made me pull the thread out o' me 
needle. Thread it now, you ! " 

Then Larry, with his quick eye and steady hand, would 
annoy her by threading it as deftly as she herself could have 
done, would possibly contribute some enormous stitches to the 
confection, and, by the time its construction was seriously 
resumed, the collaborators on the big sofa would have 
advanced a stage further on the road through the jungle, 
that had, with so much foresight and patience, been prepared 
for them. 

Young Mr. Coppinger's hopes and fears as to his prospects 
of becoming a Member of Parliament varied no more than 
was suitable in the possessor of the artistic temperament, 
but Barty, his agent in chief, maintained an attitude of 
unbroken pessimism. That whisper of the secret and late- 
declared antagonism of the Church had reached him, and 
in the secure seclusion of his own office he inveighed against 
clerical interference with all the fierceness of a dog chained 
in his kennel, who knows that his adversaries are as unable 
to touch him as he is to injure them. Only, in Barty 's case, 
he was quite sure that his barkings were unheard, and he 
would have been exceedingly alarmed had he thought other- 
wise. 



264 MOUNT MUSIC 

** I declare to God I don't care what way it goes ! " Larry 
had said many times, but most often when fatigue and 
discouragement had together taken control. 

Such times had come more often during the last week 
before the election, and they reached their climax on the 
evening of the polling day. The two young men, mentally 
and physically demoralised by fatigue, had at length, at an 
hour considerably past midnight, escaped from their 
colleagues, and, having gained the sanctuary of Barty's 
office, were drearily reviewing the position by the light of 
a snioky lamp and over the ashes of a dead fire ; counting 
possible votes, making unconvincing calculations based on 
supposition, wading hand-in-hand ever deeper into the 
Slough of Despond. 

" I was talking to your father this evening," said Larry, 
lighting a cigarette and letting himself fall into an ancient 
rocking-chair. " He wouldn't give me an opinion one way 
or the other, but it's my behef he thinks it's a bad chance.'* 

" I believe he's done his best for you," said Barty, 
dubiously ; " but the way he's situated, he doesn't like to 
come out too strong one way or the other." 

Quite right too ; I'm a rotten proposition," said Larry, 

and this dam' cigarette won't draw ! " 

I could stand getting licked," went on Barty, too pre- 
occupied to consider the plaints of his principal, " if I thought 
the Clergy had played fair. Father Hogan and Father 
Sweeney stood to us well, and I know Father Greer was for 
you at the first go-off ; but God knows what way he and the 

rest o' them went, after. I wouldn't trust them " His 

dark and mournful eyes rested dejectedly upon Larry. *' And 
what's more, they don't trust you ! " 

" They're perfectly right," said Larry ; " shows their 
sense ! You and I are what Father Greer and the rest of 
them would consider rotten bad Catholics, and I believe 
they know it 1 " He got up from the Hmping old rocking- 
chair, and stretched himself, with a yawn that prolonged 
itself into a howl. " Oh Dark Rosaleen ! — or Kathleen-ni- 
Houlihan — or anything else you like to call yourself — if you 
only knew how really and sincerely devoted I am to you ! 
I believe I'm a perfectly single-minded Irish patriot, and 
yet you won't believe in me, and no more will any one else. 






MOUNT MUSIC 265 

except this bloody old fool of a Barty here ! Barty my 
hearty, I'm going to bed ! I'm done ! Don't wake me till 
the news comes in — " He gave vent to another heart- 
broken yawn. 

" Well, for God's sake stop howling like a banshee, and 
go ! " replied the hard-pressed Barty, " I'm about done 
myself ! " 

The opening Meet of the Broadwater Vale Hounds chanced 
to take place at Cluhir Bridge, on the day after the election. 
Larry, finishing a late breakfast at Hallinan's Hotel, heard 
the beloved sounds of the hunt, the pistol-cracks of the 
whips, the clatter of horse-hoofs, the jingle of bits, and the 
steady paddling of hounds' feet in the muddy street. Joined 
with these was the clamour of the town curs and the thunder 
of the following rush of town boys along Cluhir's narrow 
pavements. Larry ran to the window, and opening it, 
found himself practically face to face with young Georgy 
Talbot-Lowry, riding a horse of Bill Kirby's. 

The sight of the hounds drove from his mind the resolve 
to have no dealings more with the house of Talbot-Lowry. 

'* Hullo, Georgy ! " he shouted : " I didn't know you 
were home " 

Georgy gave a quick look at the window, and directed his 
gaze between his horse's ears ; save that his face had turned 
as red as his coat, there was nothing, as he jogged on, to 
indicate that he had either seen or heard. 

Larry banged down the window, in a state of conflagration, 
every strained nerve vibrating. What need to attempt to 
recount what he said or thought ? Dark Rosaleen has made 
trouble often enough between nearer and dearer than Larry 
and his young cousin. She will send brothers to fight each 
other to the changing music of her harp, crowned and 
uncrowned ; she will gather her sons under the sign of 
the Cross, and encourage them to hate one another for the 
love of God. This was only a trivial bit of mischief hardly 
worthy of our attention, were it not that it had its share in 
the macadamising of that jungle road in which, as is frequent 
in such routes, the preliminary labour had been undertaken 
by an elephant, under the direction of a skilful mahout. 

It was dark when the news came to Cluhir, six o'clock of 
a wet night. The counting of the votes had taken place 



266 MOUNT MUSIC 

elsewhere, and the word was to come by wire. Barty and 
Larry, with others of the rival *' Commy-tees," had hung 
about between the post-office, and their respective offices, 
and houses of call, all day. Many drinks had been drunk, 
many bets been laid ; before the news came through, Larry's 
proclaimed indifference as to the result had worn so thin 
as to be imperceptible. It seemed to him, during the tedious- 
hours of that dark and wet afternoon, that success in this, 
enterprise was the only thing left in life worth having. To 
triumph, secretly, over that secret clerical opposition, to 
snap his fingers, openly, at Georgy Talbot-Lowry's 
impudence and all that it implied of hostility and contempt. 
These were the great objects of life, the things that justified 
all the double dealing, and the lies, and the humbug of the 
past weeks. There was no such thing as patriotism, and 
ideals were rot. He had claimed last night to be a single- 
minded patriot, but to-day he knew better ; he had become 
a man, and had put ideals away, with love, and other childish 
things. The main thing was to have your desire of your 
enemy. 

He was standing in the heavy downpour on the outskirts 
of the group that waited outside the post-office ; he was 
sick with suspense and fatigue, and hardly troubled to move 
as a motor came slowly nosing its way through the crowd. 
It passed within a few inches of him and stopped. He 
heard the Big Doctor's voice. 

*' Get into the car out of the rain," it commanded. *' D'ye 
want to be ill on my hands again } I'll run you down to 
No. 6. Let Barty 'phone the news to you. Isn't that what 
he's for ? " 

Larry was alone in the dining-room of No. 6 when the 
telephone summoned him. He had eaten nothing since 
breakfast ; his hand shook with cold and excitement, and he 
could scarcely hold the switch firmly. 

*' Burke, 1,047 ; Coppinger, 705 ! " Barty's voice sounded 
flat and without emotion. " Majority against us, 342. Can 
you hear } Adverse majority, 342 ! They've beaten us 
to babby-rags ! " The voice ceased. 

Larry said : *' All right, old chap. Thanks ! " and hung 
up the receiver. 

He returned to the dirty, comfortable old sofa by the fire. 



MOUNT MUSIC 267 

Beaten ! and Larry was used to victory. In all his twenty- 
five years of life, he had never been thwarted. What he 
wished to do, that he did, in games, in sport, in art. He 
might have said, with Beatrice : *' There was a star danced 
and under that was I born ! " 

The first defeat he could remember was the one he had 
suffered at Christian's hands, and here he was, turned down 
again, twice in a month ! 

" My luck's out ! " he said, staring at the flickering^ 
whispering fire, and feeling that ebbing of life which will 
befall, even at five and twenty, when exhaustion, that has. 
been held at bay by excitement and hope, comes to its own. 

The door burst open, and Tishy came swiftly into the 
room. 

" I've just heard ! " she said. " Dad got it on the other 
*phone. It's a wicked shame and a disgrace ! That's what 
it is ! " Her voice was hot with wrath and sympathy ; she 
flung across the room and caught Larry's hand and shook it 
vehemently. '* The fools ! " she cried, furiously. " You 
were too good for them, that's what it was ! The dirty,, 
low, common — Oh, there's no words bad enough for them ! " 
Her eyes blazed ; she looked exceedingly handsome. She 
was moved by a perfectly genuine emotion of indignation ; 
Larry was Mangan property, and it was not fitting that the 
leading family of Cluhir should be defeated. 

" You look half dead this minute ! " she cried, pushing, 
him down on to the sofa by the hand that she had taken 
'' Sit down for gracious sake ! " 

Again the door opened, and from without the Doctor's 
deep voice said : 

" Tishy ! Come here a minute, I want you." 

Larry, sitting on the sofa, watching his wet boots steaming, 
was conscious of a sense of consolation. It was something 
to know that these kind people cared. He heard the light 
chink of glasses, and looked round, and saw Tishy coming 
into the room, bearing a tray, on which were a cake, and wine- 
glasses, and a bottle of champagne. 

" Dad says he prescribes a little stimulant ! " said Tishy, 
gaily, " the wire's cut " 

She took the cork out of the bottle with a strong, capable- 
hand, and filled two glasses. " Drink that at once now I 



268 MOUNT MUSIC 

And I'll drink one drop myself — just for luck ! Here now ', 
Here's to the next time, and you at the top of the poll ! " 

" Sounds as if I were a bear ! " said Larry, with a pale 
smile at her, as he lifted the glass, *' Clink ! " He touched 
her glass, and then drank the wine thirstily. 

" I was just about cooked," he said apologetically. 
" Awfully good of you and the Doctor " 

" Ah, don't be talking nonsense ! " interrupted Tishy. 
" Here, show me your glass " 

The glasses were very large and old fashioned ; she 
refilled his, brimmingly. " Now, sit down, and drink that, 
and eat a bit of cake. Not a word out of you now ! Only 
do as you're told ! " 

Then, as he obeyed her, she suddenly knelt beside him, 
and before he realised what she was doing she began to 
unlace his boots. Larry started up, horrified and protesting. 

" Sit down at once and be good ! " said Tishy, holding 
firmly to the foot on which she had begun operations, and 
with a vigorous jerk compelling him to obedience. " I'll 
do what I choose, I always do ! " 

Her nimble, white fingers made short work of the task 
that she had set herself ; Larry's remonstrances availed him 
nothing. She had insisted on refilling his glass a third time, 
and the wine had begun to take away from him the feeHng 
of reality, and to make everything seem hazy and indefinite, 
but quite agreeable. 

*' There now ! " said Tishy, pushing the boots under the 
sofa, " aren't you obliged to me ? I often did that for the 
Doctor, but I never saw such lovely green silk socks on him^ 
I can tell you ! " 

The champagne had made her eyes very bright ; there 
was a look in them that spoke to a dim memory in Larry's 
cloudy mind. She was still kneeling beside him, and as 
she prepared to rise, she rested one hand on his knee 
to help herself. Larry put his hand on hers, and leaned 
forward. Her brilliant, challenging face was very near his. 
His memory cleared in a flash, and he thought of the night, 
long ago, when they had played at forfeits. 

" ' My shoe buckle or my lips ' ? Do you remember ? " 
he said, with an unsteady laugh, answering the challenge. 
" It's my turn now — which will you have ? " 



MOUNT MUSIC 269 

He did not wait for an answer, but looking straight into 
her eyes, he bent down and kissed her laughing, red lips. 

The situation had not materially changed when Dr. 
Mangan's large presence was suddenly developed at the end 
of the sofa. He had come noiselessly in, and was surveying 
his daughter and guest with a benedictory smile. 

*' So that's the way, is it ? " he said quietly. 

The hot dream that held Larry, melted and reeled a little. 
He released Tishy from his enfolding arms, and wondered 
if he had better risk standing up. He wished old Mangan 
hadn't come bothering in. He had only just begun to find 
out how much he liked Tishv. 

But he stood up, and met the Doctor's smile with a guilty 
and foolish grin, holding on with one hand to the end of the 
sofa. Tishy continued to hold his other hand ; he felt as 
if he should fall if she relinquished it. 

*' Well, I suppose I may draw my own conclusions from 
what I see } " went on the Big Doctor, in a voice that oozed 
fatherliness at every syllable. *' Eh, Larry ? " 

Larry swayed a little ; his yellow hair was ruffled, his blue 
eyes shone, he looked like a child who had just been 
awakened. 

*' Oh quite so, sir," he said laughing. " Apparently 
it's the only thing to do ! " which was indisputable. 

The bottle of champagne which had played its part so 
ably was finished later on, and the engagement was ratified 
and celebrated with the pomp that was its due. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

Miss Letitia Mangan was a young woman of dauntless 
courage, who, as has been said of the sect spoken of by 
detractors as The Black Prozbytarians, feared neither 
God nor divil. To thic rule there were, however, in 
Tishy's case, two exceptions admitted, and of these, one 
was her father, the other Father Greer. If, therefore, 
during the days that followed, when the streets of Cluhir 
were, as it were, mined with congratulations that exploded 
round her wherever and whenever she went abroad, any 
shade of doubt, any tenuous memory of the foxy devil back 
in Riverstown assailed her, she made haste to banish such 
with the thoughts of Father Greer's pontifical approval, 
and of the warmth of the paternal sunshine that now shone 
upon her and her fiance. 

Cluhir said that it was a very nice engagement, and a great 
match ; there were not wanting those who said also that it 
was wonderful promotion for that Tishy Mangan. A tactless 
ex-charwoman had even referred to young Mr. Coppinger 
as being Miss Mangan's "up-raiser," and having enquired, 
with incredulity, of Mrs. Mangan (*' and this before a crowd 
in Egan's shop, if you please ! " as Mrs. Mangan reported) 
" Ma'am ! are they in bonds ? " she had so fervently thanked 
God on hearing that such was the case, that Mrs. Mangan 
said she could never enter Egan's again without she'd 
feel they were all laughing at her ! 

Of the fiance and of his frame of mind, what shall be said ? 
He, at all events, said as little to himself as was possible, 
but, in the circumstances, it was no more than could be 
expected that a lively fancy would not wholly be denied, and 

270 



MOUNT MUSIC 271 

that occasional vagrant visions would present themselves 
uninvited. He pictured to himself a meeting with Christian, 
all in the clouds, of course ; he told himself he had no wish 
to meet her, nor, if he did, was he at all likely to discuss the 
matter with her ; still he thought that he would rather 
enjoy telling her that he had acknowledged his engagement 
with Tishy, to Tishy's father, in the very same words in 
which she, Christian, had broken hers with him. They had 
somehow stuck in his head. He would tell her that. He 
had certainly been rather screwed (but that there would be 
no necessity to mention) ; it was just a curious chance that 
he should have used them. He dramatised the interview 
in his mind. It would serve Christian right ; it would be 
a rather jolly instance of retributive justice — only he wished 
that the Christian whom he visualised was not always that 
shadowed, ethereal Christian whom he had painted, with, 
as Rossetti said, the wonder not yet quite gone from that 
still look of hers. Bother Rossetti, anyway ! What did 
it matter what he said } The main point was what Larry 
himself had said, and the result was that he was engaged to 
Tishy Mangan, solidly and seriously. 

There was nothing fatiguingly ethereal about Tishy anyhow ; 
she was just about as good-looking a girl as he had ever met 
in his life. He would take her to Paris some dav, and would 
see what his pals would say to her. He thought there 
wouldn't be tw^o opinions about her there. He and she 
w^ould travel about a bit. He didn't feel as if he would care 
about settling down at Coppinger's Court at once. Any- 
how he would have to fix up about Aunt Freddy. She 
hadn't written him much of a letter about his engagement : 
she seemed to like it just about as well as she had liked his 
excursion into politics. 

" Of course Tishy's a Papist ! " he thought, mockingly, 
accounting to himself for the chill of the congratulations. 
" That's enough for Aunt Freddy ! But, hang it all, so am 
I ! She ought to see how suitable it is ! I'd like to lay on 
Father Greer to talk to her ! " 

There is no need to attempt to record in detail the comments 
of the wider circle of Larr}'''s acquaintances, but it may be 
said that his friends of all ranks had one point in common, 
a sincere admiration for Dr. Manean. Bill Kirbv, who had 



272 MOUNT MUSIC 

supported him politically, now fell away from him.' Judith 
had not refrained from admitting him to the secret which 
she had extracted from her younger sister, and Bill's references 
to 5^oung Mr. Coppinger and to Doctor, Mrs., and Miss 
Mangan, would have been very helpful to those ladies, of 
whom there were many, who took the matter to heart. 

The unpopularity of the engagement was considerably 
aggravated by the extreme magnificence of the furs, presented 
by the bridegroom elect to his fiancee, and worn by her at a 
meet of the hounds, which she attended in her father's motor. 

It might have been some consolation to the neighbourhood, 
had it known that those grey furs had been of the nature of 
a peace-offering, after a rather acute difference of opinion 
on that point of settling down at Coppinger's Court as opposed 
to going abroad. Larry had shelved it for the present, 
and had, as he told himself, made good by the dint of the 
furs. That had come out all right, but now, Larry, mounted 
on Joker, and led in chains at Tishy's motor-wheel, found 
that among his former allies of the hunt things were not as 
they once had been, and was not pleased. Singularly enough, 
Judith alone was faithful found among the faithless. She 
declared that Larry had been brutally and idiotically treated, 
and that this engagement was the result, and justified all 
that she had been saying for many past ages. When Larry 
appeared at the Meet, his scalp-lock prominent among Miss 
Mangan's furs, Judith alone of his former intimates met 
him with cordiality, condoled with him over his election 
defeat with sympathy, and congratulated him on his 
engagement with decorum. 

" I felt it was only decent," she said later, to the friend 
to whom she complacently recounted her effort, *' after he 
had been kicked downstairs by Papa, and booted out of the 
house by Christian, quite without justification. I con- 
gratulated him warmly ! I absolutely rode up to the gorgeous 
Tishy and said civil things there too ! " 

" It was perfectly angelic of you ! " said the friend. 

" Quite the reverse, my dear ! " said Judith, proudly. 
*' But you see Bill has the hounds, and anyhow, I like to 
prepare for all contingencies ! " 

For the rest, a chilly neutrality reigned at the Meet. Larry 
was finding his official position of captive decidedly irksome. 



MOUNT MUSIC 273 

He wished that Tishy would not call him by his name every 
time she spoke to him ; that she would not speak so loud ; 
that this eternal jog to the covert would end before the Day 
of Judgment ; finally, that he had stayed at home. He saw 
the red-headed Cloherty, and, failing more congenial society, 
joined him. But the red-headed Cloherty was crosser 
than any of them, and what the devil was it to him what 
Larry's politics or his matrimonial intentions were ? 
Confound Cloherty, anyway ! He was a sufficiently common 
object of the Cluhir scene — and infernally common at that. 
Hardly a day that you didn't meet him loafing about the 
town. Larry hadn't the smallest wish to talk to Cloherty. 
When, some brief time before the Day of Judgment, they 
reached the covert, it was drawn blank, and Bill Kirby took 
quite a month to get the hounds out. Hunting rabbits, of 
course. Larry never knew them so out of hand. And then 
another rotten jog along the road to the next draw. Why 
on earth couldn't Bill get into the country and let them have 
a school at least, and get away from these damned motors ? 
He was hoarse from shouting replies to Tishy's airy nothings, 
all winged with his name, and all, he felt, addressed as much 
to the public as to him. She looked stunning, of course, 
and he was glad he had given her those furs, but three miles 
trying to keep a suspicious fool of a horse up to the elbow 
of a car roaring along at half speed, was ! 

It matters not what Larry thought it was, the point is that 
Tishy thought it wasn't, and, suddenly realising his views, 
turned in one of those instantaneous furies of hers, to the 
cavalier at the other elbow of the car, who happened to be 
the red-headed Cloherty. 

Larry, neglected, fell back, and presently found himself 
beside an old friend. Father David Hogan, the priest of 
Riverstown. It was nearly ten years since the great days 
of Father David's black mare ; she had passed into legend, 
and Father David, something heavier than he w^as but no 
less keen, now followed hounds in more leisurely fashion 
on the back of the black mare's son, a portly and careful bay 
cob. 

" I'm very pleased to see you out, Mr. Coppinger," Father 
David began, the kindly little blue eyes, twinkling deep in 
his red face, confirming the assurance imparted by his 



274 MOUNT MUSIC 

extensive smile, that his friendship was still unshaken, 
" You've been missing some nice hunts." 

" I've been too hard worked to get out, Father," 
apologised Larry. 

" Ah, otherwise engaged, maybe ? " said Father David, 
with a facetious stress on the word engaged. *' I was greatly 
put out over the election," he continued. " Tell me now, 
why didn't the Unionists support you } 1 noticed that our 
worthy M.F.H. came to record his vote, but your cousin, 
the late M.F.H., was, as they say, conspicuous by his 
absence." 

*' He's quite an invalid now," said Larry shortly. 

" Indeed ? Indeed ? And is that the case ? I'm grieved 
to hear it ! " Father David pressed the stout cob nearer 
to Joker, and murmured very confidentially. " I've known 
you since your boyhood I may say, Mr. Coppinger, and 
you will not consider me impertinent speaking to you. But 
could you tell me is it a fact what I'm hearing about the good 
Major — you, no doubt, have prior information " 

*' I think that's very unlikely," said Larry, sulkily, flushing 
as he spoke. 

Father David eyed Larry cautiously, and began to wonder 
if something he had been told not long since were true. 

In Ireland, it may confidently be said, all things are known 
to the poor people, and a brief consideration of this position 
will show, that this being so, there is but little that is unknown 
to the Church. 

" Well, Mr. Coppinger," Father Hogan resumed, " I'm 
told — only told, mind you — that the Major had Mount Music 
and the demesne advertissed on the English papers " 

" Good God ! " exclaimed Larry, startled out of his sulk ; 
" to sell ? " 

Father David, hke other gentlemen of his age and cloth, 
had the Baboo's predilection for a well-worn quotation. " As 
to that I cannot say," he said portentously. " ' 'Tis whispered 
in Heaven, 'tis muttered in Hell ' that the encumbrances 

are very heavy — mortgages and debts The good 

Major had a long family Mr. Coppinger ; fine, dashing 
young min they are too, but we all know that expenses do 
not tend to diminish as families grow up 1 Children may 
be a heritage that comes from the Lord, but unless other 



MOUNT MUSIC 275 

heritages accompany them ! " Father David put his 

head on one side, and, beaming at Larry, laid his little 
professional joke^ so to speak, at his feet. 

" Well, well," he resumed, *' ' What business is it of 
yours ? ' says you ! " 

*' Not at all, Father/' said Larry, still shaken by what he 
had heard. " Thank you for speaking to me — it's the first 
I've heard of it." 

The procession of the hunt halted, the hounds left the road 
by the direct method of a high stone " gap," and Father 
David and the bay cob melted away, to betake themselves 
to those secret equivalent routes known to those who have 
come to years of discretion in the hunting-field. 

The second draw seemed at first as if it were to be no more 
fortunate than its predecessor. The covert was a patch of 
scrubby woodland at a little distance below the road, at the 
head of one of the long deep glens that were the terrors of 
the Broadwater country. The wind blew from the west, 
across the wide cleft of Gloun Kieraun, and the hounds were 
thrown into the wood in which the upper end of the glen 
was masked, and were encouraged to work downwards. 
An unaccustomed wave of misanthropy had assailed Larry, 
and instead of following with the crowd the course of the 
hounds, he moved onwards along the road, scarcely consider- 
ing where he was going. He was thinking with consternation 
of what Father Hogan had told him. Larry was not of those 
who nurse their wrath to keep it warm, and the thought of 
Dick's misfortunes swept away the recollection of his insults. 
Joker had, of his own initiative, soon turned aside from the 
high road into a grassy lane, and he moved along it in the 
relentless manner in which many horses will decline to stand 
still while Larry, deep in thought, allowed the reins to lie 
on the horse's neck while he lit a cigarette and tried to fix 
in his memory Father David's exact words. He thought 
he would talk to Dr. Mangan about it. Things might be 
better than the old priest thought. From the thought 
of the doctor his mind passed on to that of his wedding. 
Was it possible that he was to be married next week ? A 
distinct physical drop of the heart accompanied the realisation. 
*' Nei-ves ! " he told himself, and hurried on to reflect upon 
his bride. She certainly looked stunning in those grey furs 



276 MOUNT MUSIC 

he was glad he had given them to her; she knocked spots 
off any other girl in the country. He impressed this thought 
on his mind. And she had sung jolly well last night, and 
had accompanied him quite decently. They would get 
on all right once they were married. She had been a bit 
edgey these last few days, but — some under-self warned 
him off the pursuit of this topic. He began to formulate 
excuses for her that inculpated himself. Larry " came of 
a gentle kind," and had the generous temper that finds it 
easier to bear than to ascribe blame. 

A note of the horn was wafted sweetly across the glen, 
and he came to the surface of his thoughts. By Jove ! 
Where had Joker got him to ? The lane they had wandered 
down ran parallel with Gloun Kieraun, and a gap in the fence 
on his left made him aware that he was now moving abreast 
with the hunt, but was divided from his fellows by the chasm 
of the glen. 

A second touch of the horn came ; Larry checked his 
horse ; Bill Kirby had seen him and was shouting to him. 

" Head him back if he breaks your side ! I want him 
this way ! " 

All jolly fine for old Bill, but where did young Mr. 
Coppinger come in ? He held up his hand to show he had 
heard, and stood still. 

One hound spoke, sharply, in the depths of the woody 
glen. Another and another joined in. In a moment, the 
echoing glen was full of voices ; it was impossible to tell 
what was happening. A couple and a half emerged on the 
farther side in the heather above the trees, working a line 
upwards, and speaking to it as they went. Larry saw the 
Master force his horse down near them, and heard him 
cheering them and doubling his horn. Another couple 
joined them, and Larry swore heartily. Here he was on 
the wrong side, and the fox away to the east ! The cry 
redoubled ; it sounded as if twice the pack were engaged, 
yet the two and a half couple were not being reinforced. 
By some chance Larry withdrew his eyes from them, and 
just then, about a hundred yards further on, on his side of 
the glen, something like a brown feather floated up into 
view. 

" A second fox, by the living Jingo ! " whispered Larry, 



MOUNT MUSIC 277 

thrilling to that sight that never fails to thrill. 

He held up his hat. Bill saw the signal, and acknowledged 
it by redoubled efforts to get the hounds away with the fox 
that had broken to the east. The chorus of sound grew and 
grew, and as Joker and his rider, tense with an equal excite- 
ment, listened, it became plain that the cry was drawing 
nearer to them. Joker's sensitive ears were twitching, his 
heart thumped ; the storm of sound was just below them 
now, and then, hound by hound, Larry counted them as 
they came, fourteen couples struggled up over the lip of the 
glen where that brown feather had so lightly lifted into view, 
and drove ahead, on the way it had gone, with a rush and a 
cry that Larry could no more have checked than he could 
have stemmed and driven back the wild stream in the glen 
below. 

It mav be said at once that he made no such futile effort. 
With a single glance at the frenzied party on the farther side, 
already galloping distractedly for a possible pass lower 
down the glen, Larry released his feelings in a maniac howl 
to the fleeting pack, and let Joker — who had already stood 
up on his hind legs twice, in legitimate protest — follow 
them. 

The fox, having begun by running west, away from the 
glen, had then turned right-handed, and was heading north 
over the mountain whose lower slopes were cleft by Glounkie- 
raun. The scent served well ; the gurgling music, with 
now and then a sharper note, like a fife among flutes and 
'cellos, flowed on, and Larry and Joker, two happy creatures, 
the world forgetting (though by no means by their world 
forgot) galloped and rejoiced. 

The little mountain sheep with their black, speckled faces 
sprang before them, quick as rabbits ; green plover flopped 
up from the grassy places, v/heeling and squealing ; a wood- 
cock whirred out of a furze bush so near Larry that he 
could have struck it down with his crop. Long-legged 
mountain hares fled right and left of the driving pack, un- 
heeded. Great spaces of the mountain were bare of fences, 
but in those tracts where the grass had mastered the heather, 
it was " striped " with broad banks, sound, and springy, 
and bound, as with wire, by the heather roots. To feel 
Joker quicken his big stride and leap at the banks out of his 



278 MOUNT MUSIC 

gallop, to realise the perfect precision of his method, as he 
changed feet and flicked off into the next field, to race him 
at the walls of smooth round stones, weathered in the long 
centuries, and grey with lichen, and to know that if they 
were three times their height Joker would have sailed over 
them with the same ease — whatever might have been Larry's 
burden of care, it would have fallen from him, forgotten, 
in the pure glory of that ride. 

The hounds ran hard for nearly a half hour before they 
checked, and Larry bethought him of those unfortunates 
between whom and himself that great gulf had been fixed. 
Apparently they had not found, any more than the rich man in 
the parable, a means of crossing it. He was high above the 
valley ; the splendid landscape lay in broad undulating ribbons 
of brown and green and amethyst and blue, with the Broadwater 
dividing it — a silver belt, with a band of green on its either 
side ; but within the great circle that was spread beneath 
his eyes were none of those toiling specks that tell of a Hunt 
in labour. The check w^as brief ; the hurrying hounds, 
busy as ants, cast themselves right and left and forward, 
combining in fussy groups, that would suddenly disintegrate 
as if by an access of centrifugal force ; crowding each other 
jealously along the top of a bank, flopping into the patches 
of bog, snuffing greedily at the orange stems of the bracken. 
Soon, reiterated squeals from a leading lady told that the 
clue was found again, and they began to run, hard as before, 
but downwards this time, as though the fox despaired of 
finding refuge among the high places of heather and rock. 
Larry had lost his bearings ; his eyes on the hounds, his 
thoughts on his horse, he had not even tried to place himself. 
But as the hounds ran on, south and west, he began to 
recognise familiar features. Away there to the south, surely 
were the trees of Coppinger's Court ; could it be the Mount 
Music earths for which the fox was heading ? The hounds 
were running now down hill, through crisp, upland meadows. 
Farmhouses began to reappear, thatched and whitewashed, 
tucked snugly in among low bunches of trees ; fences were 
changing in character ; the amber streams ran less fiercely, 
and found time to loiter in pools and quiet reaches. The 
hounds had begun to hunt more slowly, and Larry looked 
at his watch. 



MOUNT MUSIC 279 

" Forty-five minutes since they left the glen ! Bill's just 
about mad enough for the asylum by this time ! " he thought. 
" If we could only catch this lad ! " 

But this particular " lad " was not to gratify young Mr. 
Coppinger by dying, classically, in the open, *' on the top 
of the ground." Five minutes after Larry had taken the 
time he took it again, this time at the mouth of one of many 
holes in a sandpit, wherein, as was announced by a country- 
boy, *' the lad " had saved himself, with " the dogs snapping 
at his tail." 

"He earned it well," said Larry, ungrudgingly, even though 
the mask that v/as to have hung so carelessly from his saddle 
was panting deep and safe in the sandpit, hstening warily 
for a possible eviction notice from the hunt-terrier (left, alas, 
hunting rabbits in the heart of Gloun Kieraun) thanking 
its own wits for the recollection of the city of refuge. 

" Ye're on the lands of Finnahy now," said the boy. *' Folly 
on that way down, and ye'U meet the road. That's the near 
way." 

** Come on, you, and show it to me," said Larry. 

Amazing were the ramifications of the near w^ay. The 
bed of a stream had a share, and a well-trodden path along 
the wide top of a bank ; a brace of wheels had to be trundled 
out of one gap, a toothless harrow dragged from another. 
Then they were on heather again. 

** Carry on now," said the guide, " and ye '11 meet a pat — " 

Larry needed no more leading ; he was on the hill above 
Mount Music, Cnocan an Ceoil Sidhe, and the " pat " that 
was to meet him was the narrow track that led by the Druid 
Stone and the Well of the Fairies. 

The December afternoon wss darkening to its close ; 
the sun had made its farewell appearance, coming forth for 
a moment, a half-circle of clear flam.e, above the long grey 
cloud that barred the head of the valley. Larry rode past 
the great grey stone, and hardly turned his eyes toward it. 
The hounds, trooping meekly round his horse, went aside 
to the well, and drank long and thirstily. Ke did not wait 
for them. He put from his mind the mem.or^^ of the last 
time he had seen from that hill -side the sun go down. Rather 
he set his thoughts, resolutely, on that other last time, in 
the library of Mount Music. And he called up Tishy's 



28o MOUNT MUSIC 

brilliant face, framed in the furs that he had given her, that 
it might help him to drive away other memories. He was 
very fond of Tishy, he told himself ; anyway, he was booked 
to marry her next week. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

The small town of Cluhir, ever avid, as are all small towns, 
of sensation, was, did it only know it, about to enjoy a week 
that would long be remembered in its history. Miss 
Mangan's marriage, which alone would have made an epoch, 
was fixed for Thursday, December 12th ; but this, it need 
scarcely be said, was a matter that, though soul-stirring, 
was devoid of the element of surprise. Not so, however, 
was the sudden evacuation of Mount Music. Father Hogan's 
indefinite information was as much as was generally known, 
but much that was not generally known was confided to 
the discreet ears of Father Greer, and he, almost alone of 
the inhabitants of Cluhir, was not surprised when the news 
went abroad that the Mount Music carriage had conveyed 
Major Dick and Lady Isabel to the station, and that so vast 
a mass of luggage had accompanied them as to betoken a 
prolonged absence. 

That the news should, in the first instance, have been 
communicated to Father Greer by Dr. Mangan, was not 
remarkable, since Dr. Mangan's professional advice had 
usefully reinforced his unofficial advocacy of the move, and 
Father Greer was rarely ignorant for long of matters that were 
found interesting by the Big Doctor. 

Not merely for the sake of Major Talbot-Lowry's health 
had this upheaval taken place ; an even more imperious 
factor had been the state of the family finances. The cloud 
of debt that had so long brooded over Mount Music w^as 
lower and darker than ever it had been before. Dick had 
at length been coerced into opening negotiations for the 

281 



282 MOUNT MUSIC 

sale of his property to his tenants, but although, in the fullness 
of time, these might be expected to bear fruit, they were of 
no more immediate assistance to this over-weighted survivor 
of a prehistoric species, than is the suggestion to a horse to 
live in order that he may get oats. 

There was pressure in the air over Mount Music. Trades- 
men, whose suffering had been as long as their bills, began 
to turn, in what had seemed like the sleep of exhaustion, 
and to talk about solicitors' letters. Even Dr. Mangan had 
surprised and pained his friend, the Major, by forgetting 
his wonted delicate reticence, and hinting, with what struck 
Dick as singularly doubtful taste, at a repayment of those 
loans that he had volunteered, offering as an excuse for doing 
so the expenses consequent on his daughter's marriage. 
In addition to these irritations. Major Talbot-Lowry had 
received what he justly considered to be very annoying letters 
from a firm of Dublin solicitors, in connection with various 
charges and mortgages on the Mount Music property, which 
so they informed him, had been *' acquired " by them for 
" a client," and were now to be called in. Alternatively, 
it was suggested, an arrangement might be proposed, whereby 
the house and demesne of Mount Music might be accepted 
in settlement of the sums in question. The firm had been 
in communication with another creditor. Dr. Mangan of 
Cluhir, and it was hoped that all Major Talbot-Lowry's 
liabilities might be arranged for by the method they suggested. 

Dick Talbot-Lowry received this announcement with the 
mixture of indignation and contempt that might have been 
anticipated from an old-established Pterodactyl, who has 
been warned that his hereditary wallow in the Primeval Ooze 
is about to be wrested from him. Having expressed these 
sentiments in suitable language^ he said, lightly, that Fairfax 
must raise as much on the property as would keep these 
Dublin sharks quiet, and in the meantime he would shut 
up the house at once and go to London. Temporary retrench 
ment was all that was required. He would let the place. 
Some rich Englishman would jump at the chance 

Major Dick had that optimism about his own affairs that 
is often combined with a tranquil pessimism about the affairs 
of others. He said that all he wanted was to get clear of 
the blood-sucking sw^arm of hangers-on that infested the 



MOUNT MUSIC 283 

place. He wondered at his own folly in having endured 
them for so long. And it would do Christian good to get 
away. She had been looking rather pulled down — she missed 
the hunting, of course. London would do her good — would 
be a change. 

ThiSj approximately, was what Dick said. What Lady 
Isabel said, being an attenuated echo of Dick's observations, 
is negligible. What Christian said was known only to 
Rinka, the eldest of the fox terriers, who had a habit of sitting 
in the chair at which Christian knelt to say her prayers^ and 
would then, with her bland and balmy smile, extort con- 
fidences denied to any other living creature. 

On Christian fell the brunt of the arrangements, the 
decisions, worst of all, the dismissals. The house (pending 
the materialisation of the Rich Englishman) was to be shut 
up, so also were all external departments, with their workers, 
most of whom Christian had known from her childhood ; 
it was her hand that had to cut the knot of these old friend- 
ships. Her father and mother had preceded her, and she 
was left, alone in the big, old house, with old Evans, and 
his down-trodden old wife, to be her ministers, with Rinka 
to be her companion, and with the obhteration of her past 
life to be her task. 

An immense fire of logs and turf blazed in the hall fireplace, 
a funeral pyre, on which Christian cast one basketful after 
another of letters, papers, ball-cards, hunt cards, pamphlets 
old school-room books, stray numbers of magazines, all the 
accumulated rubbish that life, like the leader in a paper- 
chase, strews in its trail ; all valueless, yet all steeped in the 
precious scent of past happiness, of good times that were 
over and done with. She spent those short, dark days in 
desolation and destruction, and Rinka trotted after her, up 
and downstairs, in and out of the shuttered bedrooms, and 
the gaunt, curtainless, carpetless rooms downstairs, wondering 
what it all portended, vowing, in her Httle faithful, cunning 
heart, not to let Christian out of her sight for a single instant. 

The darkness and shortness of the days was intensified 
by the onslaught of a great storm ; one of those giant over- 
Vv^helmings when it seems that the canopy of heaven is being 
crushed down upon one's own little corner of this earth, 
and that all the winds and all the waters of the universe are 



284 MOUNT; MUSIC 

gathered beneath it to annihilate one insignificant segment 
of the world. On Monday morning, Christian saw her 
father and mother start, too agitated by their coming journey 
to have a spare thought for sentiment ; too much beset by 
the fear of what they might lose, their keys, their sandwiches, 
their dressing-boxes, to shed a tear for what they were losing, 
and had lost. And on Monday afternoon with the early dark- 
ness the storm began. There came first a little run of wind 
round the house, like a cavalry patrol spying out the land. There 
followed complete stillness ; then a few scattered drops of 
rain fell, and ceased ; and then, with a hesLvy, traveUing roar, 
the wind came rushing up the valley. It thundered in the 
cavernous chimneys of Mount Music ; it bawled and whooped 
at the windows, and shook them with a human fury, as though 
it were life or death to it to get in, as though it were maddened 
by the failure of its surprise attack. Christian and her 
ancient servitors ran from room to room, barring shutters, 
fastening doors, the draughts down the long passages snatch- 
ing at the candle flames, the old man and woman full of 
forebodings and of reminiscences of former storms, that 
came to Christian in broken scraps, through the rattle of 
windows and the shaking clatter of doors within the house, 
and the shrieking rage of the wind outside. She sat up 
late, sorting and arranging things in her room. She had 
none of the fears that might, for another, have filled the 
empty house with visitants from another world, and might 
have taught her to listen for footsteps in the echoing passages 
and knocks on the shaking doors. She had always lived 
on the borderland, and was naturalised in both spheres, 
but to-night, the voices that had so often given her help, were, 
when she most needed help, silent. 

" I have nothing left now," she said to herself, " but 
memories, hungering memories " 

She was to leave Mount Music on Wednesday, and on 
Thursday, Larry was to be married to Tishy Mangan. What 
room was there for phantom fears when these things were 
certainties ? What spectre from the other world has power to 
break a heart ? 

Deep in the night there was a lull, a strange moment of 
arrest, that endured for scarcely as long as that one could 
count ten, and then, with the returning tempest, the rain 



MOUNT xMUSIC 285 

that had been pent behind it, was hurled upon the world. 
All that night, and all the following day, the rain was like a 
wall about the house. It was flung in masses against the 
windows, as buckets of water are flung on a deck. To look 
forth was as though one looked through a dense sheet of 
moving ice. Gutters, eave-shoots, tanks, overflowed. The 
sorely-tried roof was mastered, and in all its angles and 
valleys yielded entrance to the enemy. Up in the top story 
hurrying drips beat, like metronomes, all the tempi, from a 
ponderous adagio to a racing prestissimo. Buckets and jugs 
and baths filled, and were emptied, and filled again, the old 
Evans pair waddling to and fro, elated, almost gratified, by 
the magnitude of their task. And in the middle of the 
uproar, late in the afternoon, a new sound joined in the 
chorus of the storm, the coarse and ugly summons of a motor- 
horn. Old Evans spied at the car through the hall window, 
and contrived to signal a command to go round to the back 
of the house. 

** If I let dhraw the bolts," he said to Barty Mangan at 
the kitchen entrance, '* the door would fall flat on me ! " 

** I wouldn't be surprised at all," Barty rephed. *' Hardly 
I could force the car into the storm." 

Christian was sitting on the floor by the fireplace in the 
hall, in the last of the daylight, examJning and burning the 
contents of a drawer full of miscellaneous papers, as the 
visitor made his unexpected entrance from the back, and 
Barty, recognising his own improbability and unsuitability 
on such a day and at such a time, fell to confused apologies 
that were as incoherent, and seemed as unlikely ever to end, 
as the buzzing of an imprisoned bee on the window-pane. 
The fact at length, however, emerged, that there was a map 
of the Mount Music estate hanging in the library, and that 
the Major having promised to lend it to Dr. Mangan, had 
forgotten to do so 

*' Some question of boundaries — a little grazing form 
m' fawther has " Barty said, nervously. 

The map was found, was rolled, and wrapped up, and 
yet Barty sat on. He talked incessantly, feverishly. He 
talked so fast, in his low voice, that, in the clamour of 
the storm, Christian could only distinguish an occasional 
word. She had a nightmare feeling as if a train were roaring 



286 MOUNT MUSIC 

through an endless tunnel, and that she and Barty were the 
sole passengers, and would never see daylight or know quiet 
again. His long, lean body was hooped into a very low 
and deep armchair, his thin hands clasped his knees ; his 
immense dark eyes, fixed on Christian's face, gave her the 
impression that what he was saying was without relation to 
what he was thinking. In the direful gloom of the hall, vvith 
the rain and wind threshing on the half-shuttered windows, 
and the inconstant hght of the burning logs the sole illuminant, 
his pale face, with the wing of black hair on his forehead, 
looked like the face of a strayed occupant of another sphere 
who had resumed such an aspect as he had worn in his coffin. 

" Ireland's a queer old place just now. Miss Christian," 
Barty hurried on. " Everything's changing hands, and 
everyone's changing sides. You don't know what'll happen 
next ! " 

*' I wish I were not changing sides too," said Christian, 
catching at a sentence, in a momentary lull of the roaring in 
the chimney. " Sides of the Channel, I mean — I prefer 
this side ! " 

" Do 5'ou ? Do you ? " said Barty, intensely. " Fm 
glad you do ! I feel often as if no one cared for this miserable 
country except for what they could get out of it ! At th 
election it would have sickened you, the bargaining, and 
the humbugging, and the lies. Larry was the only man that 
ran straight, and they jockeyed him " 

" I'm sure you ran straight," said Christian, with sympathy 
in her voice. Piercing her weariness and preoccupation 
was the feeling that he had something to say that lay under 
this babble of conversation. He was wrapping himself in 
a cloak of verbiage, but above the cloak his tormented eyes 
met hers, and the pain in them hurt her. 

" Me } Oh, I only ran after Larry. I thought it was a 
shabby thing of the Unionists not to have supported him — " 
he stopped abruptly, remembering Major Talbot-Lowry's 
abstention, remembering also the feud, of which he knew 
only that he had never wholly divined its origin, between 
Coppinger's Court and Mount Music. He cursed himself 
for a fool. He had not meant to talk pohtics, but what he 
had come through the storm to say was so difficult. He 
looked at Christian with agony. Had she minded what he 



MOUNT MUSIC 287 

said about the Unionists ? He began to talk again, very fast 
and incoherently. 

" Miss Christian, I said awhile ago everything was changing 
in Ireland. There's big changes coming, even hereabouts, 
things I couldn't beheve would ever happen. I've recently 
learned a — a fact — a statement that I'm not at liberty to 
repeat. I was — I may say that I was shocked — but Miss 

Christian " the agony in his eyes was in his voice. " Oh ! 

Miss Christian, for God's sake, believe that I knew nothing 
of it till this day ! " 

He stood up, steadying himself with a hand on one of the 
high marble pillars of the mantelpiece. 

*' Knew nothing of what .? " said Christian, thinking she 
had mistaken what he had said. 

*' I can't tell you — you'll know soon enough — only I'm just 
asking you to believe that I had neither part nor lot in it ! " 

Christian had risen, and was standing up ; he came a 
step nearer. 

" I just want you to understand, Miss Christian, that in 
this world there is no one I regard like you — no one, nor 
ever was, nor ever will be — but don't mind that, I only want 
to say that if there is anything in this earthly world that it's 
in my power to do for you, or that I could help you in anny 
shape or form, you will be showing the kindness and mercy 
of God if you will let me do it for you." 

He was trembling, and his voice shook, but his nervousness 
was gone. " The kindness and mercy of God ! " he said 
again. " I would feel it to be that — oh, God ! I would ! " 
The tortured spirit in his eyes had given place to another 
spirit, whose emotion Christian could neither mistake nor 
respond to, yet its kinship with the immutable fidelity that 
was in her heart made an appeal that she could not refuse. 

" Be sure I will ask you," she said, with the pity that her 
own heart-loneliness had taught her in her voice. " I 
can't understand what it is that you think may happen ; 

it seems to me as if " She broke off, held by the thought 

that disaster could hardly have another arrow in its quiver 
for her. " You may be sure if I think you can help me, I 
will ask you. I know I could rely on you," she said, pushing 
back her own trouble, meeting his wild eyes with hers, stead- 
fast and compassionate. 



t88 MOUNT MUSIC 

" I'm more than thankful — grateful — you've only to 

speak " he stumbled and stammered with words that 

were all inadequate to his feeling. *' I won't detain you ; 
I'm taking your time too long as it is — and I'll have a job to 
get home too, the river's rising every minute, and so is the 
storm " He somehow talked himself out of the room. 

Christian returned to her work of destruction. The 
situation in general had not been made easier for her by 
Barty's tragic offer of assistance in some mysterious and 
advancing stress, or by the certainty that she tried to shake, 
but could not, of what his eyes had said to her. 

But Barty, as he drove home through the storm, felt him.self 
to be a new man, consecrate and apart, ennobled by her 
promise to rely on him, glorified by her look ; and thanked 
God that, when the trouble came, she would remember 
that he had had neither part nor lot in it. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

The storm, and the preparations for the wedding, raged on 
with almost equal violence, within and without the walls of 
No. 6, The Mall. From the moment that daylight began 
on the fateful Wednesday, the day before the wedding, and 
until it ceased, Mrs. Mangan's face recurred at the window 
of the dining room, full of protest, primarily against the 
arbiter of the weather, who had sent so supreme a hindrance 
to all her preparations, secondarily, against the shops of 
Cluhir, whose dilatoriness in matters of the highest importance 
*' had her," so she affirmed frequently, " that much distracted, 
that it would be a comfort and a consolation to her if she 
were stretched cold in her grave." 

At intervals during the feverish day, beings would come 
rushing through the torrents, like trout in a swirling brook, 
and would fling themselves and their parcels in through the 
door that Mrs. Mangan was generally ready to open for them. 
Frantic messages from bridesmaids about their costumes, 
belated wedding presents, all the surf and foam that is flung 
up by the waves of a wedding, broke upon No. 6. The 
bride elect, pale and preoccupied, (" pale," that is to say, 
" for Tishy," as one of her compeers observed, '* flushed 
for any one else ! ") wrote notes, and exhibited presents, 
and packed clothes, and rode the tempest with a fortitude 
that was worthy of the Big Doctor's daughter. But even 
Tishy began to fail as darkness drew in. 

" I can't stand this house any more," she said to her mother, 
*' rain or no rain, I'm going out ! I didn't see Mrs. Whelply 

about Kathleen's wreath that she wrote about " 

You'll be drowned," said Mrs. Mangan, doomfully ; 

and sure if Larry comes over, what'U I say to him ? " 

T 289 






290 MOUNT MUSIC 

" He'll not come ! " said Tishy, scornfully. " What a 
fool he is, a day like this ! " 

** And they say the river's up in the houses down at the 
end of the town," went on Mrs. Mangan. '* In the name 
of pity why wouldn't you be satisfied to stay at home for this 
once, and you leaving me for good to-morrow ! " 

" Well, I'll die if I stay in this messed-up hole any longer ! " 
said Tishy. ** I don't care how wet I get " 

Presently the front door slanmied behind her ; her mother 

said to herself that of all the headstrong pieces ! And, 

further, that she trusted in God Larry Coppinger would be 
able to make a hand of her ; she then, with the resignation 
that experience teaches to defeated mothers, went to the 
kitchen, and prepared a tray with tea, and carried it herself 
up to the Doctor's surgery. 

** Francis, may I come in ? I have tea for you and meself." 

** Come in to be sure," replied Francis, hospitably. " I'll 
be glad of a cup. Wait and I'll light the gas." 

The Big Doctor was a faithful man, and loved his wife. 
He treated her as a slave, but it was thus that she not only 
expected, but preferred to be treated, and the position of a 
favourite slave may not be without its compensations. He 
established her in the Patients' chair, arranging it so that the 
crude flare of the incandescent gas should not be in her eyes, 
and then sat down in his own huge chair, in comfortable 
proximity to her and the tea-tray. 

" Well, Annie, me girl," he said. *' You're looking tired 
-enough, but there isn't one will touch you in looks to-morrow 
for all that ! Your own daughter included ! " 

" Go on out of that, Francis, with your nonsense ! " replied 
Mrs. Mangan, with a coquettish slap on the Doctor's great 
round knee, *' you ought to be learning sense for yourself 
by this time 1 " 

*' Maybe I'm not so wanting in sense as you might think, 
Annie 1 " he answered, his watchful, grey-blue eyes under 
the over-hanging, musical brows, softening as he looked at 
her. " I think one way and another, I haven't made 
altogether such a bad fist of things ! " 

** Darling lovey ! " cried Mrs. Mangan, adoringly. *' How- 
could you think I meant it ! " 

*' Weil, I didn't either ! " said the Doctor, with a satisfied 



MOUNT MUSIC 291 

laugh, *' but I'm inclined to think that I've done better than 
you're aware of, or that you might give me credit for either ! " 

*' All Fm aware of," said Mrs. Mangan, sitting erect, 
with a look of defiance, " is that there's nothing in this world, 
no, nor in Ireland neither, that you couldn't do if you chose 
to put your mind to it ! So now ! You needn't be talking 
to me like that ! Pretending I don't know you after all those 
years ! " 

" Well, Hsten to me now," said the Doctor, well pleased, 
" Tell me what d'ye think of this marriage of Tishy's ? " 
., " You know well what I think of it, Francis, and what 
everybody thinks of it, too ! The smartest and the richest — '* 

" Well, that's all right," interrupted the Doctor, " but for 
a woman like yourself, that sets out to be fond of her children, 
its surprising that you didn't make a match yet for your son ! " 
He looked at her with indulgent fondness laughing at her, 
and she gazed back at him with her heart in her eyes, and 
thought him the king of men. " Well, what have you got 
to say to that, Mrs. Mangan ? It's well for the poor boy 
that his father isn't so neglectful of him ! " 

" What do you mean, Francis ? What are you talking 
of?" 

" I'm talking of poor Barty, my dear ! " said the Doctor, 
enjoying himself intensely, and watching his wife's handsome 
face with eyes that lost no shade of its quick-changing expres- 
sion. " You've a high opingen of him, I know ! Would 
you think Miss Christian Talbot-Lowry was good enough 
for him ? " 

Mrs. Mangan 's mouth opened, in sheer stupefaction. 
She opened and shut it two or three times before speech 
came to her. 

" Barty ! " she panted ; " Miss Christian Lowry ! Sweet 
and Blessed Mother of God ! Francis, you're raving ! Is 
it my poor Barty ! They'd never look at him ! " 

The Doctor watched her with triumph in his face. Don't 
be too sure of that ! I might have an argument up my 

sleeve " he checked himself as a nervous knock was 

heard at the door. " Who's there ? Come in ! Come in, 
can't ye ? " 

A telegram, the orange envelope dark with wet, was handed 
to him. He read it. 



292 MOUNT MUSIC 



(( 



No answer," he said, getting up quickly. " Well, bad 
manners to the woman ! Such a day to choose ! '* 

*' What is it, lovey ? Don't tell me it's a sick call ! You 
couldn't possibly go annywhere this evening ! " cried Mrs. 
Mangan, italicising, in her indignation, every second word, 
" and for goodness' sake, go on and tell me what w^as the 
argument you said you had ? " 

*' My dear, I couldn't go into it properly now. I'll tell 
you another time. I'm bound to go, and as quick as I can, 
too ! Run now, like a good girl, and tell Barty or Mike to 
get the car ready in a hurry. That wire was from Hannigan 
that lives below Riverstown. He says his wife '11 die — she's 
very bad, I'm afraid — I'm booked for the job this long time — '* 

Mrs. Mangan, loudly expostulating, though wise in 
obedience from experience, flew from the room with her 
message, and speedily returned to find the Big Doctor still 
hurrying about the surgery, making his preparations, and 
talking as he went. 

" I mightn't be back till morning, but I'll not miss the 
wedding, don't be afraid ! I'll come as soon as I can, I 
promise you that ! " 

" Oh, Francis, love, I hate to see you go out this awful 
night," wailed Mrs. Mangan, following him into the little 
hall, and dragging his fur-lined coat off a peg, and holding it 
for him ; *'and this scorf, my darhng, put it on you before 
you ketch your death. Will you take Mike with you ? " 

" I will not. He'll be wanting here. Don't delay me now. 
Good-bye, girlie ! " He kissed her. Then he opened the 
door, and with a roar, the wind and the rain hurled in, with 
a force that staggered him, big as he was. 

" Well, such a night ! " lamented Mrs. Mangan, for the 
twentieth time, clinging to the door ; "I wish to God the 
telegraph wires were down before they could send for you ! 
Oh, will you take care of yourself now, Francis ? " 

** Of course I wull ! Go in out of the wet " he pushed 

himself in under the low hood of the car, and ghded into 
the darkness. 



A doctor is a dedicated man. He accepts risks with a 
laugh, and toil with, perhaps, a grumble, but he does not 



MOUNT MUSIC 293 

flinch. Obscure and inglorious perils are his, and hardships 
that only himself can gauge. Be sure that they are not 
unrecorded. They shine, and their splendour is hidden, 
like those lanterns that were hidden under the coats of the 
lantern-bearers. But there is, very surely, some screen, 
sensitive to its rays,, on which that light is thrown, that will 
some day show us what w^e have been too self-centred to 
realise, and will dazzle us with the devotion to which we are 
now too much habituated to admire. 



CHAPTER XL 

It was Barty who had brought out the car, and, on his father's 
departure, he released the grip of the railings that had enabled 
him to keep his footing, and was, literally, blown into the 
house. 

" Shut the door, my Pigeon-pie ! " said his mother, "the 
wind's too strong for me." 

Barty was too well accustomed to this expression of his 
mother's affection to resent it, and having done her bid- 
ding, he followed her into the Doctor's room, which alone 
had a fire in it. 

" Nothing would please Tishy only to go down to the 
Whelplys," complained Mrs. Mangan, poking the fire, and 
seating herself in front of it with a long, groaning sigh of 
exhaustion ; " some nonsense about a wreath. A wreath 
indeed ! Any one'd be lucky that kept their hair on their 
heads in this wind, let alone a wreath ! You'll have to go 
fetch her, my poor boy ! I'll not be easy till I see her and 
Pappy home again ! I thought maybe Larry might have 
come over, but I declare now I'm glad he did not." 

*' Larry's not like himself lately," said Barty, sitting down 
in his father's chair, and taking from his pocket a paper 
packet and extracting a crushed cigarette from it. "I think 
the loss of th' election disappointed him greatly." 

" 'Twas well he had Tishy to console him," said Mrs. 
Mangan, *' it was in the nick of time she cot him ! " 

** It was," replied Barty, tepidly. " I think also," he went 
on, " he's put out about his aunt not coming down for the 
v/edding, and even young Mrs. Kirby away. It's funny to 
think Coppinger's Court and Mount Music are empty now, 
the two of them — or will be after to-morrow. Miss 
Christian went to-day." 

294 






MOUNT MUSIC 295 

(" See now how he's talking of her ! " thought his mother. 
** I wonder did Francis say anything to him ? ") Aloud she 
said : '* It's a pity she's gone, but it mightn't be for long.'* 

" I saw her yesterday. The Doctor sent me there for a 
map," said Barty, with elaborate unconcern. 

(" Look at that now ! " again commented Mrs. Mangan 
to herself. " How well they never told me he'd gone to see 
her ! Aren't men a fright the way they'll hide things ! ") 
She's a sweet girl, my Pidgie," she resumed, to her son^ 

And Pappy 's always said the same thing." 

Barty looked at her like a horse prepared to shy. Had his 
father said anything to her ? The longing to speak of 
Christian had mastered him, but if his mother knew 

" I think I'd better go for Tishy now," he said abruptly, 
*' It might be a job to get down the town later on." 

He left the room, and Mrs. Mangan, in her husband's big 
chair, by his big fire, fell into tired yet peaceful ease of body 
and mind. How wonderful was Francis I Who but he 
would have dared to aspire for his children as he had ? He 
had secured for Tishy the very pick of the country ; and now, 
her own darling Barty ! Was it possible } Yes ! It was, 
if Francis said so ! But zvhat was " the argument he had up 
his sleeve ? " Never mind ! Francis would tell her when 
he came home. There was no hurry. But again, how 
wonderful was Francis ! 

She fell asleep. Barty woke her, coming into the room, 
dripping and shining in oilskins and sou'wester, like a life- 
boat man. 

'' I couldn't get further than West Street, Mammie," he 
said, still breathless. '* I had on my waders, but the water 
was up over them. They had boats going about, I believe, 
but I couldn't get hold of one. Tishy'll have to stay the 
night at the Whelplys'. I met a man that told me there was 
a big flood in the river, and haystacks, and cattle, and all 
sorts, coming down in it. It was up over the line, and the train 
hardly got out. It was near putting out the engine fires.'* 

" Oh, my God ! " said Mrs. Mangan, with her big eyes 
that were so like Barty's fixed on his, " the Riverstown 

road ! Oh ! Francis ! " she groped at the front of 

her blouse for her Rosary, her lips moving in hasty supplica- 
tion, her eyes wild, roving from her son's face to the black- 



296 MOUNT, MUSIC 

ness of the window. Suddenly she thrust back the Rosary. 

" Why do you tell me these things ? " she cried, furiously, 
** you great omadhaun ! Is it to frighten me into my grave 
you w^ant ? Is it nothing to you that your father's out alone ? 
Oh God ! Oh God ! Why couldn't he think of me as well 
as of that damned woman away at Riverstown ! " She be.£^an 
to cry, wildly, her forehead pressed against one of the stream- 
ing panes of the window. " Oh Francis, Francis ! " 

There were many more than Mrs. Mangan and her son 
that sat up all through that night in the Valley of the Broad- 
water. Trembling people in little low-lying cottages, with 
thatched roofs held in place with ladders, and ropes, and stones, 
with doors and windows barricaded against the wind. But of 
what avail are barricades against the creeping white lip of 
water, crawling in under the doors over the earthen floors, 
soaking in through mud-built walls, coming against them at 
first as a thief in the night, falling upon them later as a strong 
man armed ? 

From the lower side-streets of Cluhir the people fled 
before the flood to any shelter that the upper parts of the town 
could offer them. Ghastlv stories were told of drowned 
cattle that were swept against the closed doors, and came 
pushing and banging at the windows, carried there by their 
conqueror as it were with mockery, to entreat for the succour 
that was too late. 

When the pale dawn looked out through wind-torn clouds, 
it saw a half-mile breadth of racing water where had been 
pasture-fields ; the yellow, foam-laced river was half way up 
the tall, slender arches of Cluhir Bridge, lapping ever higher, 
as if in envy, to hide the sole beauty of the ignoble town. 
Trees, and hayricks, broken boats, and humble pieces of 
cottage furniture, jostled each other between the piers, 
tossing and dancing in grotesque gaiety, like drunken holiday- 
makers on their way to the sea. The great river that is 
credited with exacting six lives each year, was claiming its 
toll. How many it took that December night does not now 
concern us, save, indeed, where one sad house was in question, 
where a wife and a son waited a long night through for the 
man who would not return to them. 

^ ^ ^ j^ ^ ^ j& 

^V* W W ^ •TV* w w 



MOUNT MUSIC 297 

Down below Cluhir, at Mount Music, old Evans crept out 
of the shuttered house, and fought his way in the wind, 
amid fallen trees, down to the big river, to see what still stood 
of the boathouse. The boathouse had weathered out the 
night. Its roof had held, its doors stood firm. Old Evans 
surveyed it with pride. 

" Aha ! Protestant building ! " he said, old inveterate 
that he was. 

Then he saw on the submerged bank, amid a dehris of 
broken rashes, and clots of foam, and branches, something 
that he knew instantly for what it was. The drowned body 
of a man. 

Cautiously, and holding by shrubs and tree-stems, he 
reached the place, where, half ashore, half lying in thin flood 
through which tufts of grass were showing, with arms stretched 
out, grasping at the shore, the intruder lay. Old Evans knew 
well that fur-collared coat. Often enough he had held it 
for the Big Doctor. He had no need to turn the defeated 
face from its pillow in the broken reeds. He stared dow^n 
at the man whom he had hated, with something of pity, 
more of cynicism. 

" Well, ye wanted Mount Music ! " he said, at last. " How 
d'ye like it now yeVe got it ? " 

*^ J/. 4^ 42. ^ ^ 

•Jv* TV* "TP •??■ "7^ 'Tv 

The things that a man has accomplished we sum him up 
by, and the things of which he was capable, and did not 
accomplish, are of no account, and the net that held him 
is of a mesh beyond the vision of most. 

Who shall pity the Big Doctor, or blame him over-much } 
He died in the fullness of his powers, with his ambitions, as 
he believed, attained. He knew himself to be a good son of 
the Church, a faithful husband, a si:ccessfully-scheming 
father. What his priest thought of him is known only to 
his priest, but we may be sure he regretted him. A jury of 
his peers would have approved him in his every action. If 
the paths that he had followed were sometimes tortuous, 
along many of them he had been guided by the ankits of 
that mahout in whose directions his faith had taught him to 
confide. He had lived according to the light that he had 



298 MOUNT MUSIC 

received, and in his last act he took his Hfe in his hand and 
gave it for another. 

For my part, I believe that the Big Doctor viewed with a 
justified composure 

" . . . that last 
" Wild pageant of the accumulated past 
" That clangs and flashes for a drowning man." 



I 



CHAPTER XLI 

In that same wind-wild dawn, Larry awoke, and tried tO' 
believe that lie was a bridegroom, and was going to espouse 
Tishy Mangan in the course of the next few hours. 

*' C'est ioujours Vimprevu qui arrive / " he told himself. 
That ancient ditty, " The Yeoman's Wedding/' that he 
had often heard Dr. Mangan sing, attacked him like an 
illness, and enforced its galloping metres on all he did. 

" Through the valley we'll haste. 
For we've no time to waste ! 
For it is my wedding morning, my wedding m.orning ! 

The housemaid (that same Upper Housemaid who had 
spoken of the riff-raff of Cluhir) heard him, in the bath-room, 
loudly announcing his intentions. 

" Ding dong ! We'll gaJop along ! " Larry sang, and the 
Upper Housemaid said to her subordinate, " What a hurry 
he's in 1 Well ! Bright's his fancy ! " 

The Upper Housemaid was rash in thus giving her opinion. 
Larry's fancy was far from bright, but he was of those unfor- 
tunates who, when obsessed by a tune, must yield to its 
importunity, even though it followed him to the steps of the 
scaffold. 

It is not insinuated that Larry was now, metaphorically, 
or otherwise, in such a case. He was, as he told himiiclf, 
quite prepared to go through with the job, but, he likewise 
told himself, it was a rotten sort of business dressing for your 
wedding with not a soul, bar the servants, to say good morning 
to, and even they looked as sour as lemons and hadn't a 
smile among the lot of them. Larry drank some coffee, 

299 



300 MOUNT MUSIC 

and crumbled some toast, and brutally and wastefully broke 
into a poached egg, turning what had been a triumph 
of snow, into a yellow peril, and gave its attendant bacon to 
Aunt Freddy's old Pomeranian, and found that he had 
finished his breakfast, and that it was no m.ore than ten o'clock. 
The rain was coming down in torrents ; he could not go out» 
not even to the stables. What on earth was he to do from now 
till one o'clock ? The blooming wedding was at two. 

He thought of it as some one else's, and realised that he so 
thought of it, and then just tripped himself up in the middle 
of the further reflection that he wished it were. 

" Probably getting married is always a bore,'* he said to 
himself, consolingly. '' 'E's all right when you know 'im, 
but you've got to know 'im fust ' ! Why do these rotten 
old songs stick in my head like this ? Because I'm a fool, 
no doubt, and always was ! " 

He walked into the hall, and there surveyed his luggage, 
packed and ready, and appallingly new. 

" It'll give the show away, even if they let us off confetti," 
he thought. 

He wished he hadn't given in to this High Nuptial Mass 
business, and a big wedding, and all the rest of it, but the 
Doctor and Tishy were dead keen on it, and he bad been sat 
on. 

He and Tishy were going to London, and if this gale 
lasted, they would have a devil of a crossing. He w^ondered 
if Tish]/ were a good sailor. He wasn't, anyhow. He would 
warn her that he would be no more use to her than a sick 
headache, which she would probably have, to start with, 
and she wouldn't want another. The Mount Music people 
were across the Channel by this time, ahead of the gale too. 
Luck for them ! Old Mrs. Twomey had told him they were 
gone, and she said they would never come back again. Silly 
old ass, what did she know about it ? 

. He had wandered into his studio ; now, without his own 
volition, almost as if he were hypnotised, he took the canvas 
on which he had painted Christian, from where it was leaning, 
face inwards, against the wall, and put it on an easel. He 
had not looked at it since the day of conflict, and he told 
himself that he was now regarding it with the frigid eye of 
the art critic. 



MOUNT MUSIC 301 

Yes, it was good. Better than he thought. The technique 
was jolly good, slick, and unworried, and the likeness was all 
right too. He had somehow just got hold of that ethereal 
look she always had had. She was hearing those voices 
they used to chaflF her about. How she had gone for John 
one day, when he began ragging her about that old hymn ! 
She always had the pluck of the devil ! He frowned. She 
hadn't had pluck enough to stand up to her father ! He 
would look at her picture no longer He wouldn't think 
of her. She had chucked him. But his eyes were held by 
the eyes that he had painted ; with a rush, the thought of 
her possessed him. She was every^vhere, penetrating his 
very being, *' his heart in her hands " ; he shook in the grip 
of remembrance, almost of realisation., of her presence. 
For a moment, Time stood still for him ; he hung, like a 
ship that has been flung up into the wind, trembling. Then 
the sails filled, the present re-asserted itself. He was going 
to marry Tishy Mangan, and Christian had chucked him. 
He turned the canvas again. 

Why had he thought of that beastly hymn ? It had got 
hold of him now ! The measured tramp of the tune fitted 
itself to the tick of the clattering little tin clock on the studio 
chimney-piece. 

*' How the troops of Mid-ian, 
Prowl, and prowl around ! 
Christian ! Up and at them^ ' 

No, that was what the Duke of Wellington said to the 

Guards at Oh, damn the clock, anyhow ! He caught 

it up, and pitched it across the room on to a sofa, and hurled 
a bundle of draperies after it and on top of it. But the tune 
would not stop, and the muffled, unbafiled tick of the clock 
went on. He swung out of the studio, and w^nt back to the 
hall. 

The house had its back to the storm, and it was only when 
he looked down the Cluhir avenue, that he realised with what 
fury the rain was falling. The wind had moderated a little, 
but the barograph-needle was still alm.ost off the paper it 
had gone so low. It was only eleven o'clock. Two hours 
before the motor was to come for him. He felt, as he told 



302 MOUNT MUSIC 

tiimself, using the adjective that has had to undertake the 
duties of so many others, rotten. Empty, and rather 
isick, and, well, generally beastly — a sort of vague funk. 
Yes, by Jove ! He was in a regular blue funk ! That was 
what was wrong with him. (But he certainly felt sick too). 

What on earth was he afraid of ? The service couldn't 
last for ever, and he had barred speeches at the Collation 
(as Mrs. Mangan insisted on calling it). His thoughts 
took a twist. Surely he wasn't afraid of the Mangans ? He 
liked Mrs. Mangan : he was quite fond of her, quite a good 
-sort of mother-in-law she'd make. And Barty, his best man, 

good old Barty ! And the Doctor Of course he wasn't 

afraid of the Doctor either. He had always liked him. 
There only remained Tishy. Hang it all ! He wasn't 
afraid of the girl he was going to marry ! She might have a 
bit of a temper — she certainly had been rather rattled these 
last few days, but you couldn't blame her for that. The 
very last time he had seen her — the evening before the big 
storm began, wasn't it ? — he had overtaken her in the 
dark in the Mall, going home after. shopping, and that long- 
legged cad of a fellow, Cloherty, carrying her parcels for her. 
By Jove ! She had let drive at him after Cloherty had gone 
and they were in the house 1 By Jove, yeb ! He laughed a 
little at the remembrance. She had said it was a nice time 
of day for him to be coming over. She had jolly nearly cried 
she was so mad with him. For the life of him he didn't 
know why. But, after all, that wasn't exactly temper. — 
Biowed if he knew what it was. He supposed it was tempera- 
ment — quite a different thing ! He laughed and had a look 
at a large and splendid photograph of Miss Mangan. that had 
been a sort of corollary of the DubHn trousseau. Tishy was 
all right. Tishy was a topper ! He said it aloud, and, with 
that, another tune, the old nigger-tune, " Nelly was a Lady," 
fitted itself absurdly to the words. 

*' Tishy was a topper I" he sang. *' Last night she — 
No, she didn't I By Jove, there's the motor ! What's it 
coming at this hour for ? " 

He watched the car turn into the wide sweep in front of 
the house, and wheel round it, and draw up at the foot of the 
hall-door steps. It looked like the car he had hired, he knew 
".the shover's face but there was someone in it. He saw, with 



MOUNT MUSIC 303 

pleasure, that it was Barty who was in the car. Good old 
Barty come over early to buck him up a bit. Larry sprang 
to the door, and as he opened it, Barty was coming up the 
steps. He stood still on the top step. He was very pale, 
Barty always had a pasty face, Larry thought, but this white- 
ness was different, and there was a look in his eyes that made 
Larry, over-strung, tuned to vibrate to ill tidings, catch his 
arm, and say : 

" What is it .? Tell me quick ! '' 

Barty did not answer at once. He seemed as If he could 
not speak. He came into the hall and shut the door behind 
him and leaned against it, one hand still on the handle, his 
breath coming short and fast. 

** My father was drowned last night ! " he said at last, in 
a low, hurried voice. " He drove into the river. The 
flood was up on the road. Wait, Larry ! That isn't all — " 
he went on quickly, holding up his other hand to keep Larry 
from speaking. *' That's bad enough, God knows ! But 
this other thing is Disgrace ! ' 

Larrv waited. 

*' It isn't easy to tell yon," said Barty, moistening his dry 
lips. " There's just one good thing about it, my father 
didn't know " 

" What is it ? Look sharp ! " 

Larry was shaking with the strain of waiting for this with- 
held horror. 

" Tishy was caught out by the flood last night ; she didn't 
come home " 

" What ! She also ? " stammered Larry. 

" I wish to God she were ! " said Barty, fiercely. " No 
But while my father was going to his death, maybe when he 
was drowning itself, she bolted with Ned Cloherty I They 
went to Dublin on the mail — a porter at the station that saw 
them — there's no doubt about it I " 

Lany sat down by a table, and put his head on his arms 
and tried to think. His brain was whirling. He had covered 
his eyes, because he knew if he saw Barty's tragic face again 
he would laugh, and if he began to laugh, he said to himself; 
God only knew when he would stop. It was a fatal trick 
<of his nerves, he could never make Barty understand. He 
would be shocked and scandalised for ever. 



304 MOUNT MUSIC 

The Doctor drowned ! He must fix his mind on that. He 
mustn't think of Tishy ; if he did, he knew that this horrible, 
inhuman surge of joy that was pulsing in him would betray 
itself in his face, would overwhelm him, like the flood in the 
river, would sweep away all decency, sympathy, would leave 
him bare of all that he ought to feel and express. (But to 
think that he hadn't to get married to-day ! Oh, blessed, 
beautiful Cloherty !) He w^as going to be very angry with 
Cloherty, as soon as he had pulled himself together. Cloherty 
had behaved like a blackguard ; he had blackened Larry's 

face ; he had shamed him ; had stolen his girl (but, for 

all that, oh, Blessed and Beautiful !) 

Larry and Barty sat for awhile and talked, saying, as people 
will, at such moments, dull things over and over again, 
uninspired, conventional, stupid things. Both were equally 
afraid to say the things that were in their minds about Tishy 
and Cloherty ; Barty, because he was so angry with her 
that he feared he might hurt Larry ; Larry, because he told 
himself he would have to sit down to the thing squarely, 
and think it out, before he knew what to say about it. He 
tried to concentrate on the death of Barty's father, but here, 
strangely enough, Barty seemed equally unable to respond 
without restraint. 

" I've got to go on to Mount Music. They say the flood's 
down, and you can get there now," he said, presently, in the 
voice from which all the colour and life had died, *' I've 
arranged for a hearse. I had a wire, early, telling me what — 
what had happened. I was wondering, Larry, would you 

come with me .? I've no right, now, to ask you, but " 

His tired voice died on the sentence, his mournful eyes sought 
Larry's and said what his lips failed to say. 

" My dear old chap," said Larry, ardently, grateful for the 
chance of showing Barty that he bore no ill will to him, 
** Of course I will ! Anything I could do to help you, Td 
be only too glad — you mustn't think anything will make a 
difference " 

They said little to each other as the motor splashed along 
the flooded road. Each was absorbed in the effort to envisage 
the profound changes that had befallen himself in a single 
night. More than once Barty turned to Larry as if he were 
about to speak, and then turned away ; they came to the 



MOUNT MUSIC 305 

Mount Music entrance, and as the car turned In through the 
gateway, Barty sjddenly put his bony and pallid hand on 
Larry's knee. 

*' There's a thing no one here knows but myself, and I didn't 
hear it till two da3's ago, but I can't bear the weight of it any 
longer. I can't give you all the details, but you may rely on 
what I say being correct." He looked away from Larry- 
out of the window. The car was running swiftly up the 
smooth levels of the long avenue ; he knew he had no time 
for circumlocution. *' My father told me," he began, ** that 
in some way, between himself and the Major a lot of money 
had passed. The Major was greatly pressed for money — 
he wasn't getting his rents, and there were many liabilities — 
my father got hold of them all. I think he lent him a lot of 

money too " He paused an instant, then he rushed on 

with his story. ** Anyway, whatever was between them 
the Major gave my father the title-deeds of this house and the 
demesne in security for what he had borrowed. My father 
has them now. I mean," he corrected himself, " they're 
in my office. He said they were for me — he as good as gave 
them to me." Barty slowly turned a dusky red. He thought 
of what his father had said of Mount Music, of Christian ; 
the arrogance, the hateful facetiousness : he had felt as if 
brutal hands had been laid on a saint ; even now, he shuddered 
in spirit as remembrance came to him. 

*' Good God ! Was that why they went away ? " Larr}' 
said, with a horror that scarcely permitted of speech. '* Do 
you mean the place isn't theirs any more ? " He thought : 
" I wish he'd take his hand off my knee i Thank God, 
I'm out of it ! " 

" It " meant marriage with the daughter and the sister of 
men who could do such things. 

Perhaps some telepathic vibration from that wave of 
repulsion reached Barty. 

" You needn't think I had anything to do with it," he 
muttered, withdrawing his hand, " or ever will ! " he added, 
as if to himself. 

Larry remained silent ; the car ground into the heavy^ river- 
gravel on the sweep in front of the house, and ceased at the 
door that he had not seen since that day of wrath when he 
had cast his cousins behind him for ever. 

u 



CHAPTER XLII 

Dr. Mangan's body was still lying on the door on which it 
had been carried up from the river-bank. Kitchen chairs 
now supported it where it lay, with its burden, between the 
high windows, in the desolate, sheeted dining room, sur- 
rounded by portraits of Talbots, and Lowrys, and their 
collaterals, who would surely have considered the presence 
of Francis Aloysius Mangan, dead or alive, as something 
of an intrusion, not to say a liberty. 

Old Evans opened the hall door, and silently led the two 
young men through the hall, and opening the dining-room 
door, left them there. They stood looking down on the Big 
Doctor in silence. The strong, coarse face had taken on that 
aloof dignity, even splendour of expression, that death can 
confer. The servants had covered all else with a sheet ; 
the soaked fur collar of the coat was turned up, and made a 
pillow for the big, iron-grey head. 

With a shaking hand Barty turned back the sheet, His 
father's thick, powerful hands were crossed on his broad 
breast. The son stooped and kissed them, humbly ; then 
he replaced the sheet, and kissed the heavy brow, from which 
all the marks of the turmoil of life had been smoothed. 

" I believe he is near us," he whispered ; he took a prayer- 
book from his pocket and knelt, his head resting on the 
covered form. 

Larry knelt also. If only Barty had not told him that 
abhorrent thing. He tried to forget it, to pray for the soul of 
the man who had, as he believed, always been kind to him, 
and a good friend. Larry was undevout, careless, thinking 

306 



MOUNT MUSIC 307 

little of spiritual things, so little, that he had scarcely troubled 
himself either to question or to accept what he had been 
taught, but he was quick to respond to emotion of any kind ; 
now he Hstened, with an unaccustomed reverence, to Barty's 
voice, brokenly whispering the prayers of his Church. Their 
unfamihar beauty stirred his imagination, their appeal for 
mercy wakened his heart, and made him ask himself what was 
he that he should refuse mercy ! He felt the anger, that had 
only been roused in him within the last few minutes, dying, 
merged in pity and in awe. 

" By the multitude of Thy mercies, ever compassionate 
to human frailty, deliver him, O Lord ! " Barty's husky, 
shaking voice murmured. *' Give him, O Lord, eternal 
rest, and let perpetual light shine upon him " 

The door was opened and Evans said : 

" The police are here, and are asking for Mr. Mangan." 

Barty rose from his knees ; without a word, he placed the 
prayer book in Larry's hands, and left the room. 

Larry had risen also, but instead of following Barty he 
knelt again by the Big Doctor's still figure, and began to speak 
to him in the low voice that is the mark of recognition of the 
great mystery of death, and tells of that singular, sudden 
reverence that is bestowed on the body when the spirit has 
left it ; a reverence that seems to imply a belief in the nearness 
of the freed spirit, which is unsupported by the immeasurable 
remoteness of the expression of the mask that it once wore. 

" Doctor," said Larry, ** I don't know if you can hear me, 
but I'll chance it. I want to tell you that it's not my fault 
about Tishy, and the wedding not coming oflr. She bolted 

with Ned Cloherty last night " he checked himself, and 

felt he ought to apologise for talking slang, and then thought 
that if it were the Doctor, himself, he wouldn't mind. ** Tishy 
liked Cloherty best," he hurried on, " and she was probably 
quite right, but I want you to know that I would have played 
up all right.'* Then he said, hesitating, that Barty had told 
him a thing that he didn't quite understand the rights of. 
" You must forgive me if I felt angry. I daresay there's 
a lot to be said on your side if I only knew it. But I don't, 

and you can't tell me now " He stood up, and touching 

the cold brow, smoothed back the damp hair. " You were 
always awfully good to me," he said, and, stooping, kissed 



3o8 MOUNT MUSIC 

the forehead, as Barty had done, and found that his eyes 
were full of tears. 

As he stood erect again, he saw he was not alone in the room. 
A girl was standing just behind him with a basket of Christ- 
mas roses m her hand, a girl who had come quietly in while 
he was speaking, and had waited, watching, with eyes that 
saw more than Larry's kneeling figure beside the de:id man, 
listening, with senses that were perceptive of a fellow-listener, 
in whom were newly-learnt impulses of self-reproach and 
penitence. 

" Christian ! " said Larry, trembling, as he had trembled 
when he spoke to her by the Druid Stone on Cnocan an 
Ceoil Sidhe. 



****** 



309 






This story, which has not aspired to being a story, and is 
no more than an effort to lift, for a moment, the inevitable 
curvain that hangs betw^een Irish and English every-day life, 
shall not be tidied-up, and rounded off, even though as much, 
nearly, remains unsaid, as would equal what has gone before. 

Summaries are tedious, and demand a skill, in making them 
endurable, that is bestowed on few. Its possession might, 
perhaps, be conceded to Mrs. Twomey (who knows more 
about many things than most people.) Unfortunately, 
however, it happens that but one observation of hers, bearing 
on the situation, has been preserved : 

Why then, I knew well she'd have him ! " she declared. 

She was fond of him always ! " She warmed to her theme. 
'' And why wouldn't she be fond of him } Sure the dog'd 
be fond of him ! " 

From which it may be gathered that Mrs. Twomey, who, 
like King David, thought badly of dogs, holding that ihey 
were as unimpressionable as they were savage, had a high 
opinion of young Mr. Coppinger's powers of attraction. 

Possibl}^ aiso, the statement may be taken as an indication 
that she had no sympathy with the views of the Spirit of the 
Nation in the matter of what are called " Mixed Marriages." 



FINIS 



Caliill <£7- Co.. Lid., Printers, London, Dublin and Drogheda. 



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(F233eslO)476B 



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RETD APR 2 3 



1984 



ROl 1991 



General Library 

University of California 

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UC- BERKELEY LIBRARIES 







